


To Live Again

by Kuroshi44



Series: Remembering [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Do-Over, Everybody Lives, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, One Big Happy Family, Random Updates, Reincarnation, Remembering Past Lives, Second Chances, Time Travel, Work In Progress, eventually, issues with memory, probably, reincarnation as themselves, things go wrong in the process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:36:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuroshi44/pseuds/Kuroshi44
Summary: From dying in his brother's arms to his mother's dying arms, from living obliviously to remembering everything, from chasing ghosts to chasing people, from hating the military to being the grandson of various members.From losing everything to getting it all back, no strings attached anywhere in sight.To live again, and this time make a difference, with the the advantage of memories of what is yet to come.





	1. Ace

**Author's Note:**

> I have seen time travel ones around, hopefully this will be different. If it is too similar to something you have read or written let me know so I can change it/take it down/read something interesting. I don’t own anything

Ace goes to sleep as his melted organs finally give and the last thing he is aware of is his brothers arms grasping him in a silent plea for him not to leave even though they both know it’s useless.

He wakes with a very different pair of arms holding his now tiny body cradled to their chest, soft murmurs reach his ears and tears hit his face as he opens his mouth and _cries_ for what he left behind. Then the words are distinguishable and he cries even harder as he realises where he is.

‘Ace … that’s what he decided … this boy’s name is Gol D. Ace. The son I had with him …’ his mother’s voice giving him a name, only it’s not really her but the ghost of a man she loved who choose it for him. The shouting starts as her breathing gets harder, but despite her failing strength her grip gets tighter and he doesn’t want her to go just like she doesn’t seem to want to leave.

But it’s as inevitable as it was when he left Luffy, and his heart breaks at the idea that his ridiculous little brother is going through a similar pain to this.

It’s not until weeks (or is it months?) later that his brain catches up with what’s going on around him as he’s lying in a crib in a bandit hut, and he screams the loudest he ever has in his life.

Or should it be lives because while he doesn’t really remember all this it feels horrifyingly familiar and his body really has no right to be this small when he could swear he was twenty years old not that long ago.

**ACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACE**

Dadan knows there is something seriously wrong with the brat.

It’s nothing specific, there’s not too much development before it should be possible, he doesn’t worship Satan (at least not in hearing) or do anything _too_ out of line or insane for a child. He grows normally and eats normally (for a D at any rate) and other than a few things that she knows are actual conditions that run in his family the now toddler could almost pass for a normal kid.

Almost. Despite looking completely normal his eyes are enough to send shivers down their spines, some things that he does or says do not match up with how you would expect a child of his circumstance. She mentioned it to Garp once and he called her paranoid, but he’s not around enough to _see_ , Garp is so strange himself that he can’t _notice_ when something isn’t normal.

The child was raised by _bandits_ that made no effort to clean up their speech or preach the manners that an actual family might. So, there is no way that Ace, his words as garbled as they are by his immature mouth, should be so polite. He shouldn’t say a twisted please or thankyou when she has no memory of the words being said in his hearing. A child they ignore or hurl abuse at should not just smile and get on with life and help as much as his limited body will allow.

But worse than that is his eyes and the emotions they reveal. He looks at her like he _knows_. His eyes seem to see right through her to the twisted heart she had long ago tried to cast out. He smiles when she insults him and laughs when she growls, like he knows they’re her way of hiding the painful love she’s started feeling for this child that is now _hers_.

Of course, these things are a little strange and the knowing is a little creepy, but the thing that gets her the most is the look of longing he shows whenever he sees an open flame or flickering candle and that, at three years old, he is more than happy to go along with Garp’s training to get stronger.

Dadan knows there is something seriously, seriously, wrong with the brat.

**ACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACE**

Ace is both scared to change something and wants to very, very, badly. He is scared that if he does something different then he won’t be able to meet his brothers, terrified that the only thing that made life worth _living_ will disappear if he messes something up.

On the other hand, he has _changed_ since then and it is very hard to play the part of his younger self. Knowing Luffy had gone a long way to defusing his rage and that had left the door open for Pops to cool it the rest of the way.

But more than that, there were things he couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow to be repeated. He couldn’t allow Sabo to be lost to them. He wouldn’t allow Thatch to meet his end at the hands of a Nakama. He wouldn’t watch as Luffy risked life and limb to protect him when it should have been the other way around.

And so, he came to a … balance of sorts. He would be himself, and he would wait. He wouldn’t kidnap Sabo from his family before the boy had had a chance to realise that the noble life was not what he wanted. He wouldn’t march himself down to Luffy’s village and drag him off to raise by himself, no matter how much it was for his stupid little brother’s own protection. No, he would try and do things the way he had done them before.

Of course, that didn’t mean he did everything the _exact_ same. He didn’t bother asking questions he already knew the answer to, or holding grudges that didn’t really matter. He didn’t say things that could give him away in public places just to pick fights, or beat up the bandits even though he knew he could.

He was still a vicious little bastard though, he had to get strong somehow or he wouldn’t be able to protect those things he didn’t have _yet_ but would _soon_. Waiting for his body to catch up to his mind was not something he was used to, but he would survive (with luck) and hopefully so would everyone else (if he had anything to say about it).

He may have started hunting and steeling a _little_ young, but he was a pirate raised by bandits and a D to boot so he thought it was perfectly reasonable.

He thought he had played out his meeting with Sabo correctly, even if they weren’t as close now as they would be later. At least he still had his (older? younger?) brother back where he was capable of looking after him and fighting for the freedom he deserved.

So maybe people talked about him being a strangely polite hellion that confused the hell out of everyone within 100 meters of him as he beat them up, it wasn’t _too_ different from the first-time round, and Sabo shared his reputation both times so it’s all good.

**ACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACEACE**

Sabo noticed his (slight) change in attitude just after he turned ten, Ace didn’t really care. Luffy should be arriving soon, and while the thought filled him with longing it also filled him with fear, it didn’t help that he couldn’t remember exactly _when_ he had arrived.

He did know that he had been more than a bit of a bastard to his little brother, and there was no way in hell he was going to be able to pull that off this time. It was hard to spit on someone for no good reason when you remembered dying in their arms after saving their life. 

Luffy was his, and not Garp, Sabo, the bandits or the Marines were going to be able to change that once he got a hold of him again. Luffy was too dangerous (to himself and other) to be alone for any length of time and he had been an idiot for leaving him the previous go round.

He had waited ten years to see Luffy again, excuse him for getting a _little_ impatient as the day slowly drew closer.

Excuse him for worrying that something would go differently and the time for Luffy to arrive had already passed him by and Garp hadn’t, wouldn’t, drop off the annoying rubber ball of energy that had been his reason for living for longer than he cared to admit.

So maybe he was getting a little short with Sabo, and the bandits, and scowling more, and causing more fights, and his hunting spoils _might_ be a little more beat up recently than they used to be. It was completely understandable.

Ace would apologies to Sabo later and introduce him to Luffy and his best friend and soon to be brother would understand why.

Today was another day when he was wound just a little too tight with energy and some poor, defenceless, buffalo had felt the effects of his frustration. It’s noble sacrifice for his peace of mind was greatly appreciated and so was the meat it would offer him for dinner.

He was almost back to the hide out (not home, not without Luffy) when he heard the voices.

He froze, and then found himself sprinting. Found himself standing like some frozen stature when he caught sight of that ridiculous face staring at the bandits that Garp had decided would be the boy’s guardians for the foreseeable future. Watched numbly as the familiar face from so long ago (more than just the ten years, closer to twenty since Luffy had been this young) turned from the rather strange appearance of the mismatched bandits and started to walk off as Luffy was known to do.

Ace wanted to call out, run up and hug the boy he knew so well, loved so much, but who would consider him a stranger. But he was still frozen with the shock of finally, finally, seeing the person he had missed so much. He needed to get his attention, get him to look at him instead of walking straight past, but something was clogging his throat.

Thankfully Garp did it for him.

‘Oh, Ace!’ the insane old man yelled out as he grabbed his other grandson by the back of his shirt as the small boy attempted to escape. ‘That’s Ace, he’s three years older than you. You’ll be living together from now on, so you better get along.’

Garp’s words certainly had an effect on the bandits, apparently they hadn’t yet been aware that Luffy was there to stay. Luffy was dragged into the conversation as Garp had by now realised that letting the trouble magnet loose was probably not the best of ideas just yet.

It was so hard for Ace to walk away, to not run up to Luffy and tackle hug him. Doing so would probably freak the kid out, and finally get Garp to take Dadan seriously when she said there was something wrong with him. But he managed it, and left the adults to their yelling as he calmly (or not so calmly) skinned and gutted the buffalo for lunch in a few minutes (or whenever the idiots stopped arguing).

Finally, the impromptu family was assembled with its youngest member and Ace was left to watch as Dadan tried to lay out the rules and beat the boy into submission during lunch. The first-time round he had been too busy eating to pay much attention to Luffy’s reaction.

And it finally occurred to Ace that Luffy hadn’t actually been that much a cry baby until he was comfortable with him and Sabo. Huh, that was something he was going to have to think about. He often forgot that Luffy _was_ actually related to the insane old man.

Part of him wanted to give his little brother meat from his own meal when the boy started complaining about being hungry, but that would have been a little _too_ nice even for him. Ace did not share meat, as the bandits had discovered over the last few years at the cost of several pieces of their own flesh. Oh well, he was going out to meet Sabo so he could always catch and cook something for Luffy then, he remembered very well how much his youngest brother ate and one bowl of rice was _not_ going to cut it.

Thinking about just how _much_ the three of them ate had him walking out of the hut in preparation to start hunting. He would have to get Sabo first to help, if not with the actual hunting that he could probably do on his then at least to help carry.

Footsteps and the sound of the door opening had him turning around to chase off any bandits that had got it in their head to follow him, instead he was met with the too big smile of the boy with a straw hat.

‘Hey! I’m Luffy! Let’s be friends! Where are you going?’ he had forgotten how loud his brother was over the ten years of absence. Still, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But how to respond? Last time he had ignored the other boy and tried to kill him when that didn’t work. He wasn’t going to repeat it, he had gotten lucky then and he thought he might just be a little bit stronger this time round and Ace didn’t want to risk killing his younger brother by accident.

So, he didn’t say anything, didn’t smile or show just how much he wanted to wrap the rubber brat in hugs and blankets to wait on the mountain while he rid the world of all that had threatened him last time. He just waited and held out his hand in a silent offer for the lonely boy to join him on his afternoon hunt. 

The grin that he got in reply was the brightest Ace had seen since Luffy arrived, he had forgotten just how sunny his little brother’s happiness was.

Luffy talked nearly the whole way down to Grey Terminal, getting more animated the more smiles that Ace failed to supress. He didn’t actually want his brother scaring away all the game, but after so long without him even this useless chattering was a welcome balm to his nerves that had been slowly fraying over the last few years. Ace _did_ put a finger to his lips to hush him when they finally got close, Luffy would make an … interesting surprise for Sabo if he couldn’t hear him from a mile off.

Eventually he caught a glimpse of a distinctive top hat through the last of the leave between them and the heap of junk that Sabo unfortunately called home. They hadn’t finished building a tree house to move into yet.

‘There you are, I expected you ages ago,’ Ace didn’t mention that he had had to travel slow so that the seven-year-old could keep up, just grinned and waited for his friend to notice. ‘It’s been a surprisingly quite day, Blue Jam’s been keeping quite because marine’s have been sighted in the area. If where lucky he’ll stay that way and we might be able to catch something good off the …’ Sabo trailed off as he finally noticed the person standing behind Ace, his eyes going wide.

‘Yo,’ Ace said as casually as possibly, ‘Gramps is in town and that’s why the pirates are quiet, he’s left earlier though.’ He frowned as Sabo seemed to get more and more distressed, loosing colour and starting to sweet with his eyes never moving from him and Luffy together.

‘Hey, Sabo, get it together. This is–’

‘Luffy,’ Sabo muttered before his eyes rolled back in head and he collapsed to the ground in a dead faint.

Ace and Luffy just stared at the unconscious blond. That was … more than a little unexpected.


	2. Sabo

Sabo woke to the sound of a crackling fire and the smell of roasted meat. He was lying on a surprisingly comfortable and _warm_ bed that seemed to consist of a spare blanket and a pile of leaves and dirt between him and any rocks. Open eyes revealed a clear starry night and flickering red and orange to go with the crackling sound.

Open eyes also revealed Ace casually leaning against a rock keeping watch for the night, a pile of clean bones next to him and a sleeping boy with a straw hat curled up asleep in his lap. The sight caused a conflict of emotions for Sabo; on one hand he wanted to hug his brothers and make sure they never left his sight again, on the other hand he would love nothing more than to whack the bloody idiot.

Finally, he settled for whacking and then hugging, he may have woken Luffy in the process.

**SABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABO**

The first time Sabo met Ace was soon after he had run away just run away from home, he didn’t think he would have lasted long if he hadn’t. A few weeks of trying to survive and he had found himself cornered by a few of the stronger beggars that had nasty habit of less begging and more taking from those weaker than themselves. Sabo, being half staved and still cramped from his long imprisonment in his cage, had unfortunately fit that description.

Ace had wondered over, beat them to within an inch of their lives, stolen everything they had had on them, and then wondered off after bowing and saying, “sorry for the trouble.”

Confused was a little too mild a term to describe what Sabo felt in that moment. True he had still lost all his things but at least he could still move and forage for more without the inconvenience of a broken bone or two. The dark-haired boy had dressed and moved as if he was savaged born and raised, but he had spoken well and his manners were good, if a little miss placed. As a high born himself who thought that it should be the _nobles_ out here where they belonged the contrast had been more than a little jarring.

All in all, Sabo had no idea what to think about the random stranger, and both wanted to talk to him again and hoped that the stranger stayed as far away from him as possible. He didn’t know who to trust yet in this strange place, or really how to live here in general, but he did think that asking advice from someone so obviously disturbed was _not_ a promising idea.

Good idea or not, the choice did not end up being within his control. Before the day had even ended he had slipped on a piece of junk on one of the piles and gone slipping and sliding down the slope, his landing had been anything but graceful.

The person he had landed on had seemed to agree, if the loud groaning was anything to go by.

‘That hurt.’ The voice was unfortunately familiar, even in pain, and recognisable as the one who had given such a polite apology to his victims. ‘Would you mind getting off? You are surprisingly heavy, and I’m sure your cloths don’t help.’

Those were not a five-year-old’s words, they were especially not the words of a person who had been raised in poverty where 75% of the used language revolved around new ways to curse at the world. Their presence was enough to startle old habits out of Sabo and he found himself leaping to his feet, repressing his own groan, and apologising automatically.

Then reality caught up and he remembered that this was a boy his own age, who had beaten up a group of men that could have killed Sabo in an instant, and was another of the desperate people that called this place their home as they had nothing else to lay claim to.

The boy was looking at him intently, a strange look in his eyes that seemed to confirm Sabo’s suspicion that he wasn’t all there. Sabo didn’t know what the look meant, but he didn’t think it was something that was usually directed at strangers, especially strangers that had suddenly come tumbling down to land on top of you.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, how the hell did you end up in this dump?’ Sabo froze. If there was one thing he had learned in his short stay here it was that being new was _bad_. If people thought you didn’t know how to survive, or that you were some weak little kid that should still be cuddling up to parents, then you were fair game, something they could take from without fear of their prey biting back.

‘Same way everyone else does,’ the standard, believable, lie, ‘and I am just very good at hiding.’

The boy gave him a knowing smirk. It seemed to suggest that this other kid knew something he didn’t, something that he wasn’t going to tell him because he _enjoyed_ messing with people.

‘Hey, neither of us seem to fit in here, how about an alliance of sorts.’

Sabo frowned at the words, ‘alliance?’

**SABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABO**

The freckled boy, Ace as he had eventually learned to call him, didn’t confuse Sabo any less now than when they first met. He seemed to come with two default moods and nothing in-between; happy and polite or a raging beast that left very little in terms of survivors in his wake. There had been ups and downs in there working relationship over the past year and hints of things that seemed to only add to the confusion that appeared to be a six-year-old boy most of the time.

The first six months after meeting Ace had been both the worst and the best. They were the best because he was now learning how to actually survive, learning how to taste freedom even if he hadn’t quite managed it yet. His ability to steel was certainly better than Aces, and apparently why the boy had suggested the alliance in the first place, but Ace was stronger even if Sabo was slowly catching up to him in terms of strength. Sabo was no longer barely surviving; hunting with Ace, both beast and man, he was starting to feel like maybe he could _live_ for the first time in his life.

It was worse because he did not understand Ace, at all. Ace seemed to _know_ things, things about Sabo that were absolutely impossible. Ace never said anything, but something in his eyes at times seemed to say oh so clearly that he just _knew_.

And then there was the questions. They weren’t bad, they were probably just things he would ask anyone he was required to trust to certain extent, but they still felt pointed.

‘Do you think a person should be judged for who their parents are?’

‘What do you want to do with your half of the money?’

‘Where do you intend to go when we finally have enough to get out of here?’

‘If we both want a boat, maybe we should consider getting one together, at least until we get off this damn island.’

And then there was the final emotion that Sabo had managed to recognise in Ace eyes. There wasn’t just a look of knowing, there was look of … caring. It was the look that he had always sort in his parents when he was young and always found missing. It was the way a family would look at each other, that love that had nothing to do with personal gain. It scared him to have another look at him like that, it wasn’t something you expected to find in people their ages, and it was way too intense for a bond of necessity like what brought them together.

There was something strange about Ace, but Sabo knew he would have died or been caught long ago without him.

A year turned into two and then three. Their alliance had turned into true friendship and Sabo had found himself learning to accept Ace’s quirks and work with them. He was used to watching his friend beat up men he had no right being able to beat with a smile on his face and managing to keep his words and voice polite. He was used to watching the other take down several boars because he felt like a snack and treat the woods like an extension of his own back yard. Sabo had even adjusted to watching Ace meet abuse with consideration from people they knew only to break someone else’s arm when the fool thought to try the same thing.

He had gotten use to Ace’s behaviour, but a small voice in the back of him mind whispered that something wasn’t right.

It wasn’t something as drastic as the feeling like Ace was going to betray him, it wasn’t uneasiness or a feeling of falseness from Ace’s oddities, it was something that made Sabo wonder if he was a little odd himself.

Like how when Ace was polite Sabo got a feeling of being thrown off balance as if the other should have reacted differently. Whenever they walked into a bar to rob the patrons blind he would feel this itch like he was waiting for Ace to do something, say something, that always remained incomplete. A feeling of relief whenever Ace smiled, like it was something rare that needed to be treasured.

As their fourth year of knowing and planning together came to an end Sabo wondered if Ace’s oddness was contagious, it would certainly explain why Sabo seemed to eat so much more than what he would once have considered normal.

When Ace was about ten things start to get a little … different.

It was slow at first, and it took Sabo a while to notice the increase in fights that Ace would pick, the violence he would respond with. To see the way his friend was always tense, always wanting to move and hunt and steel.

Something had Ace on edge, it seemed to be eating away at him and making his temper get shorter and shorter by the day. Sabo wanted to be angry as his friend would start to snap at him for the most random of things, but for some reason he wasn’t surprised. He didn’t like it, and it made him feel sad in way’s he couldn’t describe, but that traitorous voice in the back of his head seemed to suggest that this should have been normal and it was his behaviour _before_ that had been odd.

And just when Sabo had been about to confront Ace about whatever the hell had him so worked up, he had wondered out the forest with someone following behind that had made Sabo’s world swirl sickeningly, though he had no idea why.

Ace had always been familiar yet unknown. Like looking at someone you thought you knew only to realise they just shared a face. But this person, this seven-year-old with a straw hat, watching him stand beside Ace like he _belonged_ there had his mind screaming at him to look up and _notice_ , to _remember_ something that he wasn’t even aware he had forgotten.

Ace was talking, but Sabo couldn’t hear him over the banging in his head as something yelled at him to realise something. A single crack and something slipped through.

‘Luffy?’

And just like that the flood gates were open and Sabo blanked out as a whole heap of horrifying _memories_ rushed in like a tidal wave.

**SABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABOSABO**

Sabo glared down at his (older? Younger?) brother after he had finally caught a hold enough of himself to let go of the lying little bastard, not that he could blame him but still …

Remembering his past life had been much like the time he had regained his past memories from before the accident after ten years of living with amnesia. They were his, he knew they were his and that that had been his life, and he had no idea how he had managed to forget them. They just settled nicely in the waiting gap from before his memories of _now_ began.

Apparently, he had been reborn after his last life had ended. It just so happened that his last life had been the exact same as this one, with only a few minor differences that could all be traced back to _one_ person.

Luffy had fallen back asleep soon after the tangle of limbs had finally separated, Sabo was very happy about this as it meant less witnesses to his soon to be very insane looking behaviour.

After all, he was about to accuse one Portgas D. Ace, son of the pirate king, of having lived this life before and screwing with the timeline rather majorly (or not so majorly, yet). While it was technically possible that this Ace didn’t remember and was just legitimately different from the one from his last life, Sabo didn’t believe so for a second.

After all, Ace _remembering_ would explain more than it wouldn’t. the weird knowing and strange tension would all make sense if Ace actually did _know_ and had been tense because he was waiting for someone, Luffy, their little brother, and the one Ace would give his life to protect.

Realising that there was no way in hell he could out stubborn the older D, Sabo continued his glare but resolved himself to having to ask questions if he wanted to get this story straight.

‘How long was I out?’ Sabo was mildly impressed that Ace only looked slightly uncomfortable under his heavy stare.

‘Two days? Give or take a few hours. I carried you on my back to the forest when it became clear that you weren’t going to wake up anytime soon, Grey Terminal wouldn’t be safe with you like that. You had a fever, Luffy was really cute looking after you.’

Sabo had to fight the smile that wanted to spring up at that. He was mad god damn it, and he wouldn’t be side tracked just because their youngest brother was adorable.

‘And you have remembered your past life _how_ long? Or should I say “future”?’

Ace winced. ‘Ah, about that … always? Just kind of woke up in mom’s arms knowing everything as if I had just drifted off instead of dying.’

Sabo blinked. On one hand he had been lied to for five years, on the other it would be pretty weird reliving _everything_ rather than just getting random feelings before getting hit in the head with it. He could understand someone not wanting to tell anyone what they knew.

Not to mention Ace had probably been worried about stuffing something up and not meeting Luffy if he told, not that he seemed worried _now_ about what might change.

‘So, what, you died in Luffy’s arms at Marineford and then woke up in your mother’s arms as she died immediately after? That sucks.’

Ace was suddenly frowning at him with a considering look.

‘Sabo, if you died at ten in a boating explosion then how do you know exactly how I died at twenty, ten years later?’

Sabo froze, that was not something he had meant to let slip _quite_ like that …

Silence, then, ‘Sabo, you bastard!’

And that was the second time that night that they managed to wake up Luffy.


	3. Zoro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a theory, and it is hinted at in the manga, that Zoro and Luffy are either on the same island or two that are very close together, I am disregarding that entirely.
> 
> Also, time lines, I have messed with them a little, or a lot, in order to keep somethings reasonable, but then i had to make others unreasonable. it may not become obvious in this chapter but i am warning you in advance.

Zoro did not swear as Kuina's sword came crashing down on his own and sent him flying, there was no point to it. It the background he could hear the other boys making noise, but it had no effect on him.

He needed to get stronger, that's all there was to it.

No one really understood Zoro, or knew much about who he was or where he came from. They  _did_  know that he had a very fierce desire to be strong and a seemingly stronger desire to beat Kuina, if how often he challenged her was any indication.

Kuina, for her part, probably knew the most about the green haired boy, but that wasn't saying much. She knew because she  _remembered_  and because he seemed just little bit more relaxed around her, which was odd since she and her father were the only two that could actually beat the hell out of him.

But then again, she realised as Zoro pulled himself up off the ground, we did practically raise him so it's not that surprising. Zoro had turned up one day a few years ago, able to tell them his name, age, and date of birth, and refusing to say where he came from, Kuina was still unsure if it was because he didn't want to go back or if it was because his sense of direction was so bad he wouldn't be able to find it if he tried.

But in the end, it didn't matter, and no matter what she said she was rather glad to have the boy with her. The others, even her father, seemed disapproving of her love of swords, and the fact that she could beat all of them hands down did not help the matter. Zoro was the only one that treated her like any other sword wielding manic that came to their dojo to learn … maybe that wasn't a good thing but oh well.

But even she had trouble understanding him. Zoro was driven, there was something in his eyes that seemed to say that this was a necessity and not an idle wish. Everyone knew that he wanted to be the greatest swordsman to ever live, but Kuina often saw something in his eyes that seemed to suggest that that impossible goal was nothing more than a stepping stone to something bigger.

Zoro was also impossibly strong for his age and even the adults respected him for that, but he also seemed to have a way of already  _knowing_  how to use a sword. Even if his forms were clumsy at first, she had watched as he picked them up faster than anyone else she had seen, had watched him practice moves she  _knew_  he hadn't learned yet in secrete.

The idiots here were impressed by his two-sword style, she'd seem him use three as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Kuina was fairly certain that Zoro already knew all there was when it came to the art of the sword. Zoro wasn't here to learn so much as practice, and truthfully speaking he could do that anywhere so long as he kept the practice swords on him or found somewhere else to get a hold of them. No, Zoro wasn't here because of the swords, he was here because he wanted to beat her in a fight, and that seemed to be all there was to it.

It both made her happy and rather scared, but if he really was only here for her, she guessed that it was also rather humbling.

**ZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZORO**

Zoro quite honestly had no idea what was going on with himself half the time any more than anyone else seemed to. It was just that he got these weird … feelings, that he had more or less given up fighting.

Well, that wasn't quite right, but it was the closest he could get to explaining it.

It was a feeling of familiarity when holding a sword, even just a wooden training one, that seemed to speak from his very soul. It was the feeling of actions he had never seen guiding his muscles to  _move_  in ways which he knew from watching others would be devastating. It was the quiet respect he held for all blades when he could feel their very soul buzzing gently in his hands from even the most basic or standard blade they held in this dojo.

He had made himself master one and two-sword styles first, but he never felt more comfortable than when he was using three, three swords just felt  _right_. It didn't take long for Zoro to be fairly sure that he knew everything this place could teach him and he just needed practice, but he wouldn't leave.

He needed to beat Kuina.

There was something … not quite right with the way she fought. Something that, while she continued to get stronger and better as she got older, seemed to grow as well as it held her back. He needed to beat her, if for nothing else than just so that he could find out what the hell was suppressing the strength of the only person that could give him a run for his money in this dojo before he headed off to bigger opponents.

That would always make him frown.

Zoro sucked at directions, even he could admit that the world seemed to turn in ridiculous ways so that north and south always ended up in different places to where they should be, which meant that he was likely to end up somewhere completely different to where he intended to go. So, the fact that knew  _exactly_  where to head in order to find  _something_  that he knew would be very precious to him was more than a little worrying to him. It was a constant tugging near his heart that had become his compass point because while he couldn't point to north or south and be anywhere close to correct he could always point in the direction of that tugging and get the exact same direction each time.

Well, almost, he had stood absolutely still once and felt as the tugging had  _moved_  from the direction it was pointing to so Zoro suspected either it was being moved by someone else or the tugging was going to something alive. He didn't particularly care.

Zoro got weird feelings that he had more or less given up fighting, and those feelings said that if he wanted to be able to keep whatever was on the other end of the tugging then he had to be the  _best_ , anything less and he would lose it to someone else.

So, Zoro trained and fought because he  _needed_  to be strong, he needed to be the best and he needed to be able to protect what he wanted to protect, and he and Kuina were delusional if they thought being the best in this dojo was any real indication of strength.

**ZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZORO**

Zoro had had enough, he had challenged the blasted girl 2000 times, and he still couldn't win, and whatever the hell it was that was eating away at her was only growing and it irritated him to  _hell_ that not only was she beating him, she wasn't even using her full protentional.

So, this time they'd use real swords, maybe a fight with another's soul working with her own would force her to unlock whatever was eating away at her.

She predictably won, and then rubs it in his face.

'That makes 2001 times I've beaten you!' and at her words Zoro gave up on trying to keep his cool.

'Damn it! It's so frustrating!'

And apparently his own breaking was what it took to finally get the damn girl to reveal what was eating away at her. 'I'm the one that's frustrated,' she muttered later when they were relaxing outside the dojo, for all their fights they were practically brother and sister.

'Huh?' she's frustrated? He'll never be able to retrieve his treasure at this rate, whatever it is.

'When girls get older, they become weaker than boys. Pretty soon you'll be stronger than me. Zoro, you're always saying … that you're going to become the world's greatest swordsman … dad says that girls can't be master swordsmen … you're lucky you're a boy, Zoro … I want to become the world's greatest swordsman too!

'But I'm starting to get breasts … I wish I was a boy …'

Of all the … she's been held up all these years by nothing more than insecurities about her gender? And she's crying over it, his frustration level just reached new heights.

'What the hell are you crying about? You beat me! That's not fair, beating you is part of my dream!'

'Zoro …' she looked shocked, good, maybe it'll shock her out of her own idiocy. Weren't girls supposed to be smarter? Nami and Robin certainly made them out to be …

Who the hell were Nami and Robin? Oh well, he'd think about that later.

'Someday I'll beat you because I worked hard, not because you got weaker! It's got nothing to do with being a boy or a girl! I'm training all the time to beat you and you go and say stuff like that that makes me look bad!

'Let's make a promise to each other. Someday, one of us will be the strongest swordsman ever, we'll fight each other for the title, and the winner has to look after the others treasure!'

And finally, she dried her sad tears, but then she just started to cry over something else. 'You idiot, you're too puny! It's a promise.'

And suddenly her smile was almost predatory. 'And don't worry, I'll look after this mysterious "treasure" of yours.'

Zoro froze as she ran off laughing, that was not something he had meant to let slip. But at least it meant that if he couldn't protect it himself then there was someone else willing to do so for him.

It was very early the next morning when one of those … feelings of his started playing up. Zoro was in the middle of training in the predawn light when he was suddenly struck by the feeling of absolute  _terror_ , the need to get back to the dojo or something very  _bad_  was going to happen, something irreversible.

He was running before he was even sure that was what he had decided to do, but then he wasn't deciding much of anything right then other than the need to  _hurry, hurry, hurry,_  as fast as possible because he's about to run out of time.

He'd just reached the stairs when he saw her foot go out from under her, watched as she started to tilt over and fall  _down_.

Some would prioritize their own life, hope she gets away with nothing but a few broken bones, but Zoro knew that if she falls then she is going to  _die_ , no questions asked.

So, in probably the most foolish decision of his life, he caught her, broke her fall and more than one or two of his own bones as her larger weight comes crashing onto him.

His last thought before the pain dragged him down under is that he hopes she does what he would have done because neither of them, her or him, know what it is he has to protect so badly.

**ZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZOROZORO**

Kuina looked down at the surprisingly small lump lying underneath the sheets on the futon and couldn't stop hugging herself and  _shaking_  as the shock had yet to wear-off and instead seemed to be getting worse as time went on and the lump didn't  _move_.

He was alive, though the doctors said it was a close thing. The number of bones broken from being trapped between her and the stairs was  _high_ , not to mention the rather large bump to the head he took during the fall. Someone had made the comment he was lucky he was so hard headed or he wouldn't have survived, neither her nor her father had thought it was funny.

She was the  _best_  swordsman in the dojo, but even someone like her tripped and fell occasionally, and this time it had nearly cost Zoro his life, still might.

Her memories of what had happened were blurry with panic. She vaguely recalled the step not being where it should be, the feeling of wind rushing as she fell and closing her eyes in preparation for  _pain_  before colliding with something that was too warm and  _soft,_  despite hard muscle, to be the wooden stair she had been set to hit. The feeling of continuing to fall below horizontal as arms wrapped around her, the sickening  _crack_  and slight jolt as they hit the stairs and then even worst the bumpy  _slide_  as they just kept on going.

Struggling to get up when they finally stopped moving, looking down and  _screaming_  at the sight of blood and limbs twisted in the wrong direction and a flash of green hair. She hadn't stopped screaming until help had come and her father had had to  _drag_  her away so the doctors could arrive and see if there was anything they could do.

And now here she sat, huddled, staring at Zoro, her friend, her god damned  _brother_ , as he lay still on his bed that had been moved to her room and fought for his life. She couldn't stop shaking, or silence that harsh, dark, little voice that whispered that it was all her fault and it should be  _her_  lying on that bed.

Her father was the only one other than the doctors that she would allow into the room, he had made no secret to her over the years that he considered Zoro a son in the same way she considered him a brother. He was a part of the family whether he knew it or not.

'Please tell me you're not crying, I got enough of that last night.'

Kuina startled at the voice, she had spent the last few hours (or was it days?) wondering if she would ever hear it again, she definitely had not expected to hear it quite so soon or so clear.

She looked up into Zoro's open, awake, clear eyes and felt such a rush of emotion she didn't know what to do. Part of her wanted to hug the brat, part of her wanted to hit him for being so reckless, the only sane part of her brain reminded her that either action could well cost Zoro his life the way he was now.

'Two days ago,' she corrected him, she knew that the doctors had taken a while to patch him up and she vaguely recalled her father trying to get her to eat Dinner a while ago so it was probably passed midnight at this stage.

Zoro frowned, apparently not happy with the news.

And she lost what little control she had over her emotions.

'You are an idiot. What the hell possessed you to do something like that? Do have any idea …' she had to stop and take a breath to keep from yelling and waking everyone else up. 'You could have died.' It was barely a whisper.

'And you would have.' There was no hesitation in his voice, this was fact and the  _knowing_  look in his eyes scared her.

'You broke your back, you won't be able to walk for months and if it had been a millimetre off you would have never walked again,  _ever._ It would have been the end of your dream even if it wasn't the end of your life.'

'But it wasn't, and I will. Your life for the  _possibility_  of that was not much a trade-off. Besides, I would have worked around it.'

She stared at him. Something was … different about Zoro, he looked more confident, more determined, she wondered vaguely if the bump to the head had knocked something loose.

She kept quiet for little while longer and then stood up to leave. 'I need to go get the doctors, and father, let them know that your awake.'

'I'm leaving as soon as I can walk,' his words froze her at the door. 'There's something I need to find and this has shown me that I don't have time to waste.' God, she wanted to cry at his words and the  _knowledge_  that she couldn't stop him. 'Don't worry, I'm sure we'll meet again on the seas one day.'

And fighting tears she smiled at him and when to get her father.

Several months later Zoro left on a boat with three swords at his side and a teary family left behind.

A while after that Zoro found himself attached to a rubber child, much to the annoyance of said boy's two older brothers.


	4. Law

Law was very out of it by the time Corazan found him, he wasn’t very aware of what was going on around him, only the vaguest idea that he was somehow talking and Corazan was alright. He didn’t have much energy to fight as the older man started forcing the fruit down his throat.

That state didn’t survive that dreadful taste, or the knowledge that taste seemed to unlock.

With that disgusting fruit coating his tongue and sliding down his throat Law _knew_. He knew exactly what he had just eaten, how to use it and what it’s limits were both now and when he was stronger. He knew that Cora-San was in trouble, that he was hurt and possibly dying and that he was ignoring it all just so that Law could live.

And most importantly Law knew they had to get the hell out of there, _now_ , before it was too late.

Law watched as Cora-San slid sideways as his body gave up its energy when it was so badly hurt. He didn’t say a thing, didn’t attempt to heal him with his fruit, ignored his father figure when he started to try and get his attention.

No, Law did nothing but calculate in his head the best course of action. Cora-san was a marine (he was an idiot if he thought Law had actually bought his lies) but with his theft of the fruit and feeding it to Law that status meant very little in terms of protection at the moment. Cora-san was trying to tell him about some marine ship nearby, and while they could keep events secret long enough for it to be of use Law knew there was a traitor on that ship (not that he knew _how_ he knew).

Law was sick, Cora-san needed help if not now than at least soon. Law had a fruit that could pull of some pretty impressive things and he knew how to use it, but using his fruit wouldn’t come cheap and he needed to decide what was the best use of it at the moment given his failing strength. The Ope Ope no mi may have granted a temporary respite but using it carelessly would cost him the time he had.

Cora-san was still trying to talk him into something, something he hadn’t heard a word of, and law decided that now was a good time to tell him exactly what was going on in his head.

‘Cora-san,’ the man went quiet as Law finally spoke, ‘I don’t know what it is you want me to do, but I think it can wait until after we have left this island.’ Cora-san looked like he wanted to protest, but Law cut him off. ‘Even if we have to avoid the Marines in the future once this gets out, something as important as this sounds should probably only be delivered to someone you _know_ you can trust. Please, let’s just go, before someone stubbles onto us by accident.’

Cora-san seemed to hesitate for the longest moment, but the look in Law’s eyes seemed to convince him that leaving might just be the best option.

Slowly, carefully, the two of them made their stumbling way out of the town. Cora-san might not have liked it, but just like six months ago he was willing to put this little brat before everything else. Law couldn’t explain why he felt like they needed to move faster, couldn’t say what the urgency was, all he knew was that they were going as fast as they could with Cora-san in the condition he was.

They were close, so, so, close to the edge of town, when the threads came down in front of them like the walls of a bird cage.

‘Damn it!’ Rocinante shouted from within the safety of his power, collapsing to his knees as he had almost achieved getting Law to freedom only to have it ripped away from him. He gave no thought to his own body as he threw himself towards the strings, didn’t take notice as he screamed silently and bashed his hands against the obstacle, in an attempt to tear it down, of the shredded flesh his hands were becoming.

‘Cora-san, Cora-san! Stop!’ Law’s voice, practically the only thing that could have brought him back from the edge of madness where he had found himself. This situation was so eerily similar to all those years ago when he had been tied to the side of building and forced to listen as his father and brother were shot at, not knowing what was happening and doubting they would make it out alive, that similarity had been pushing him closer to something he had sworn long ago he would never become.

He hadn’t wanted Law to see him like that. He was getting weaker and if Law had to see him die he would rather the boy’s last memory of him would be smiling rather than the sight of desperation he had just displayed.

He could probably still save Law, now if only he could find a chest or something to hide him in …

‘let’s go, Cora-san,’ Laws quiet voice once again breaking him out of his thoughts. ‘If we walk around the edge maybe there’s some place to get through?’ Rocinante knew there wouldn’t be, but he didn’t want to take away the boy’s hope, besides, he might be able to find that chest.

Careful, silent steps as they both stayed as close to the cage as possible and tried to avoid being seen. This had continued for ten minutes and Rocinante was just starting to worry that the threads would start to contract when Law suddenly broke away and ran to the very edge of the cage, Rocinante shuffling behind, to stare intently at a couple of bits of junk just on the other side.

‘Law,’ Rocinante muttered, leaning forward as if to gather the boy in his arms and drag him away, though from what he had no idea.

‘That should do,’ was the response he got, before Law held his hand in a weird position and muttered something that sounded like “room.”

And a small, blue, bubble surrounded them and made it _just_ far enough to reach the bits of junk on the other side of the cage. Law’s smile was blinding, about as bright as when Corazan had denied being a marine.

The sphere didn’t last long, just long enough for Law to get out a shaky “shambles” and switch their places with the pieces of junk so that now _they_ were outside the cage and the junk was inside. Rocinante looked down in utter amazement at the now unconscious child, while learning how to use devils fruit was often almost instinctual, that was too fast and way too controlled for a first-time use.

But he would worry about that later, for now they were free and needed to find some place to hide and patch themselves up until they were strong enough to escape properly, or at least get in touch with one of only two marines he would trust at this point.

Very gently he cradled the small boy in his arms, close to his chest, as the child latched on to his shirt. They would have time while Doffy assumed they were trapped, he wouldn’t let it go to waste.

Thirty minutes later Rocinante had found their boat, silenced it, and sailed into a nice secluded cave where they would be very difficult to spot, especially without any sound to give them away. He had even managed to bandage all the annoying wounds he had gotten when his god damned clumsiness had dumped in the middle of those pirates.

At this rate he just might be able to get the two of them out alive.

**LAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAW**

Law woke up from some very bizarre dreams to the comforting presence of Cora-san’s arms wrapped around him, holding him snuggly against the other sleeping man’s chest. It wasn’t something Law had experienced since he was little boy and his family had still been alive.

Law frowned as he took note of the bandages beneath his hands and around the arms that seemed rather against letting him go. He didn’t have much of his energy back, but he could feel that, even without using its power, the Ope Ope no mi would not let him die from his illness. Therefore, he didn’t have any reason Cora-san could justify for not doing what he did next.

He watched as Cora-san’s eyes opened just as the blue room faded. Law knew he was ginning like an idiot and that his face was covered in sweat from the operation he had just pulled but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had Cora-san, and this time nothing was going to take him away.

Cora-san, for his part, looked as if he was going to start shouting at Law for using his devil fruit powers when it was obvious they tired him out so much, especially for a wound that wasn’t life threatening when Law had yet to heal his own that obviously was.

However, Law had decided that he was way too cute and too tired to be yelled at for something he considered himself justified in doing, so he just curled back up in Cora-san’s arms and went back to sleep. Cora-san must have agreed with him because he just tightened his hold.

**LAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAW**

The second time Law woke up Cora-san was in the middle of trying to make a den-den mushi call. The call mustn’t have been that important, however, because as soon as he saw that Law was awake he gave up his attempts in favour of fussing about the boy. Somewhere in his new guardian’s babbling Law managed to make out that he had been asleep for about four days total since he ate the Ope Ope no mi, so Law guessed he could possibly put up with the fussing if it made the man feel better.

Eventually Cora-san seemed to give up and just sat back before looking Law in the eye as a way of telling him to listen because this was important and something he needed to get of his chest.

‘Marine Code 01746, I am marine HQ lieutenant Colonel Rocinante, I am a marine. Sorry for lying … I didn’t want you to hate me, you see …’

Law just grinned. ‘Knew that, idiot. You’re not so good at lying as to deny the obvious.’ The way the man deflated with relief was funny to watch.

‘Of course,’ Cora-san (or should he call him Rocinante?) continued, ‘after giving you the Ope Ope no mi the marines are going to be after us so I don’t think I can make that claim anymore. So, the question is, what are we going to do now? There are a few people within the marines that I would still trust with my life, now I’m a criminal, that might be able to help us. There’s also something I have to report before I walk away from them for good.’

Law bit his lip. Cora-san had given up his job and become a criminal to help him, he had cost this man so much, and he thought the man might have been willing to give up even more if it meant that Law could live.

Dreams, for the last four days while he had been asleep Law had dreamt of things that had made his heart race. They were not things that strung together to give a linear story, no, they were the flashes that made nightmare and memory hard to tell apart, glimpse of what was or what might have been in the way someone still sees something from long ago that they no longer remember well and are the happier for it.

Law had dreamed of Cora-san dying while Law was forced to wait in a chest and listen to it happen, powerless to make a sound himself. He had seen a Rubber boy with a straw hat tear the world apart in revenge for every innocent like the city of Flevance that the government had wronged, he had seen the same boy lying on an operation table with his chest carved open with the flesh all burned. A Marine Vice Admiral named Garp who had managed to hide the son of the Pirate King successfully until the boy was 20 when he was finally executed. His city burning and the smell of the bodies around him as he hid while they removed him with the rest.

He didn’t know what it was, but he knew in the same way that he knew how to use his fruit that there were some people out their he would be able to trust, and maybe even follow, if he could just find them. If Cora-san had died than he would have broken, he would be only slightly better than he was after he had finally escaped Flevance; living only to kill but with the crosshairs fixed firmly on Doflamingo.

But Cora-san was still alive, so maybe Law could take a second chance at family, get out of this with his heart intact.

Back to Cora-san’s question though …

‘If one of those people you are talking about is a person called Garp, he’s very good at hiding things even if he doesn’t appear capable of keeping his mouth shut.’ Law shrugged at Cora-san’s look, ‘I don’t care if we get help from the marines so long as I get to stay with you, just don’t expect me to join them, I still want to be a pirate even if I know longer want to destroy the world,’ a small smile as he quoted something he had heard from the boy in his dream, ‘after all, pirates are free.’

Cora-san blinked, smiled, and went back to his Den-Den mushi call.

‘it’s me, Sengoku-san,’ Cora-san said as soon the call went through, ‘I may have stuffed up a little, I kind of need some help.’

What followed was a _very_ long conversation with Cora-san detailing the events that had transpired and giving a summary of the plot by Doflamingo to over throw some poor country by the name of Dressrosa, with promises of the full plan to come.

Eventually they had to involve Garp as he did, in fact, have a good track record of keeping people hidden when he wanted to, even from Sengoku. With that the conversation turned into a lot more random laughing and Law was now apparently a grandson, though he wasn’t exactly sure whose. No one mentioned _where_ they would be hidden, or even what on earth Garp was also hiding (but Law _knew_ even if he didn’t know how) but it was established that they were to contact Garp as soon as they made it to East Blue where he was stationed.

It took them nearly two years to make it across the Red Line, and another six months after meeting up with Garp to be moved to a place known as Dawn island.

Law wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting, though he had known that there was meant to be at least two, maybe three, other people on the island and one of them was someone who he thought he may have sworn to follow to hell and back (it was one of those new pieces of knowledge that he couldn’t explain), but he did know that the fourth person with _green_ hair was not meant to be one of them.


	5. ASL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of Ace’s perspective of parts of Sabo’s chapter, only warning you so that hopefully people don't get completely lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ignore the time line, there is no time line, I did not have any control over this story as I wrote it or have any clue what the hell it was trying to do.

Ace stared at the body sprawled on the ground in front of him, looked at his new little brother for help without finding any, and decided he would just have to wing it. It wasn’t like they were completely inexperienced with people suddenly falling asleep for no good reason, but Ace was normally the one sleeping and Luffy had only met them that day.

First things first, they couldn’t leave him here. Grey Terminal might be where Sabo lived, but that didn’t mean it was safe, or that Ace hadn’t intended to move him out soon anyway even if he had counted on the other boy being conscious when he did. It would take a bit of manoeuvring, and they would have to come back for his stuff, but Ace thought a few days in the forest (or Bandits hut if the weather got nasty before Sabo woke up) would probably do his friend some good.

Eventually he had Sabo on his back and Luffy with his arm somehow wriggled around his to make sure the rubber idiot did _not_ get lost, and they started the casual trek back into the forest they had just left. Luffy was being surprisingly quiet, but then he had just seen a person he had just met collapse after saying his name when there was no possible way he could have known it.

Wait …

That was something he needed to remember and think about because that did not make sense, even to him and he had woken up as a child version of himself as soon as he had died. He suspected that his meeting with Sabo would have been a _little_ bit different if Sabo had gone through the same thing.

Well, that was something that would have to wait for later. For now, Ace had to concentrate on getting Sabo somewhere both safe and comfortable and feeding the little black whole on legs that had not had a very big lunch. He should also wonder about just how he was going to keep the boy in sight while he was busy looking after Sabo since this was rather unusual and he didn’t know how long until the other boy woke up.

Or what he was going to do if he Sabo failed to wake up in what he considered a reasonable time fame. Ace was thirty years old (in mind at least) and, unfortunately, he did actually need to think ahead in regard to somethings so that he could manage to protect the two people that were most precious to him.

By the time they had arrived at the clearing around the sight of their original tree house, which Ace had been preparing for when he finally got Sabo out of the dump, Luffy’s stomach was making a lot of noise and Ace’s wasn’t much better.  Sabo had also developed a fever during the walk, something Ace noticed when he put the boy down on a clear bit of ground so that he could actually do something.

Ace sat back for a second in thought, being careful to keep an eye on Luffy in case the younger boy decided to wonder off. His plans had not taken into account Sabo getting a fever, but in the end, he decided it didn’t matter much.

‘Luffy,’ he called as the boy finally seemed to get distracted, Ace was honestly surprised it had taken so long. ‘I need you to stick with Sabo, that’s the blond boy, and keep an eye on him while I go get some things from my room at the bandits. After that I’ll get us some food. You think you can manage that for a few minutes?’

His answer was a very enthusiastic nodding of Luffy’s head and watching the other boy settle next to their soon to be brother, but that wouldn’t come until after Ace had gotten some answers.

Unfortunately, he had to re-listen to the bandits talking about losing Luffy on the first day (as if the boy would die that easy!) and them commenting about him being the son of a demon. Knowing what he did now of Luffy’s parentage he had to wonder if they were really talking about him like he had assumed the first-time round. He would just have to add it to the growing list of things he would need to think about while he waited for Sabo to wake.

Once he had escaped the bandits hide out with his loot in arms, it was _easy_ to set up a camp with Sabo rolled up in blankets, a cheery fire going, and Luffy keeping an eye on Sabo’s temperature with strict instructions on what to do if he got too hot. Luffy might be a little slow and a slight air head most of the time, but he could be surprisingly focused when he wanted and it was possible to get him to repeat simple motions. As soon as he had Luffy and Sabo settled he set out to get food.

And that was the pattern for the next two days while he waited for Sabo to wake up. Luffy would stay behind at the camp and look after Sabo with dedication and Ace would go out and bring back a meal. At night, Luffy seemed more than happy to curl up with Ace after they had eaten their fill and go to sleep and Ace wasn’t going to discourage him. Luffy was his little brother and he had missed him for the last ten years, the fact that his last memory of Luffy was the boy collapsed in the middle of a battle field with the threat of magma trying to burn him to ash did not help.

And while he waited for Sabo to wake up, Ace tried to get his thoughts in order. This had not happened in the original timeline, it had occurred as soon as he had introduced Luffy, who Sabo had been able to name without being told. The only conclusion Ace could come to from this was Sabo did, in fact, remember living this life the same as Ace had, and for some reason he had only remembered once he saw Luffy and him together and the shock of remembering had knocked him out.

Or something like that, Ace wasn’t that smart and it sounded ridiculous but Luffy was involved so it was probably correct.

Speaking of Luffy, Ace wondered if his youngest brother would also remember, he also wondered if that would be a good thing or not. Ace had decided that just having Luffy around was a good thing, it was always would be, but he would never understand just how his little brother worked, or be able to predict just what outcome Luffy’s actions would have. There were too many things about him that just didn’t make sense, so Ace was resolved to just taking him as he was and rolling with the punches.

**ASLASLASLASLASLASLALSALSALSALSASL**

Sabo and Ace stared down at their sleeping little brother, some would call it creepy, some would suggest that the way their brother dribbled was gross, these people didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Luffy was adorable, and considering the _last_ time either of them had seen him in their past lives, they needed the visual confirmation that the one they considered the ray of sunshine in their lives was still whole and healthy.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Ace muttered after Sabo had finished explaining himself at long last. ‘You had amnesia for the ten years between when you “died” and when I did, and you only remembered your past after you saw the article in the paper. During this time, you were, and then continued to be, a revolutionary, second in command after Luffy’s father, running around trying to save the world.

‘After you remembered you had to wait two years before Luffy finished training and came out of hiding, ran into him and helped him out at an island you _coincidently_ happened to be at, and ate my fruit while you were at it.

‘You then returned to the revolutionaries where you were attacked by _Black Beard_ , the same bastard that got me killed, and all of you were driven into hiding to recover. You then spent the next ten years running around picking fights with the world government, saving Luffy, and generally causing Luffy grade chaos until you eventually died of battle wounds, with Luffy, after the two of you had killed Blackbeard, Akainu, and quite a few other heavy hitters, during a war that dragged on for days and involved more or less everyone that was still alive of those I know and quite a few I don’t.’

Sabo nodded, ‘that about sums it up.’

Ace gave him a look. ‘And you only just remembered all this now, but had the nerve to call be a bastard for not telling you five years ago that I had already met you and that you were going to die in five years’ time.’

Sabo winced, ‘okay, so that may have been a little unfair, but I didn’t have any control over my memory loss, or apparent gain.’ There was quite for a moment, then, ‘forgiven?’

‘Yeah, forgiven,’ Silence again, this time more relaxed and longer lasting.

But it couldn’t last forever, and they obviously didn’t want it to.

‘So, what were you going to do?’ Sabo eventually asked, and sighed when he saw Aces confused look. ‘you have had ten years to plan while knowing exactly what was going to happen in the future, please tell be you didn’t waste it freaking out bandits and the people of grey terminal with your ability to hand their arses to them and be polite while doing so.’

‘Of course not,’ Ace snorted, ‘I may not be as smart as you but I’m not like Luffy either, I did actually think about it.’ Silence again until Sabo got frustrated.

‘And, what did you decided to do?’

Ace smirked, ‘Nothing.’

Very, _very_ , heavy and pointed silence descended. Sabo was looking at his brother as if he was waiting for him to tell him he was joking, and actually asked out loud when said comment was not forth coming when he wanted it to be.

Ace just laughed, Sabo wondered if it was within his rights to hit him.

‘I intend to get stronger, hopefully strong enough that I can protect what I want, but other than that I don’t have any plans. Well, I did more or less decide that after watching my little brother nearly die in front of me and then not being able to see him for the next ten years that there is no way in hell that I am letting him out of my sight again, but nothing too specific.

‘Think about it, Sabo, what does it really matter? I’ve lived this life, I fought against my blood and became a Pirate thinking that it was what I had to do to get out from under my father shadow, where did it get me? Executed as I watched as everyone I loved was put in danger and then chucked back right to day one. Nothing I do matters, so I may as well do what I want.’

Ace was silent for a while, collecting his thoughts, before he continued in an attempt to make his other brother _understand_.

‘Luffy always says that pirates are free, and that he wanted to be the Pirate King because he was the freest of all, but even when I was a pirate I never really understood what that meant and I certainly didn’t manage it. I was so busy letting what other said about my father twist me, too busy trying to not be him that I never quite became myself, and I ended up spending my whole life in a cage of my own creation. We promised a life with no regrets? About the only thing I don’t regret is becoming brothers with you and Luffy, your my most treasured things, so this time I think I’ll just stick with him and do whatever the hell else I want. All that really matters is that I’m strong enough to protect him, and you, if I need to.’

 Sabo thought about it, and realised that what Ace said made sense in a way, he just had a few things he needed to clear up.

‘The Whitebeard Pirates?’

Ace just shrugged. ‘I love them, they were my family, and hopefully I’ll be able to go and do something about Teach before he becomes too much a problem, but Luffy was the first person to give me unconditional love without knowing anything about me. For years after you were gone he was practically my reason for getting up in morning some days. Besides, their strong, and Luffy is my weakling younger brother, be needs me more.’

Sabo couldn’t help chuckling, ‘a weakling younger brother who became the pirate king.’

Ace just smiled, ‘should prove one hell of an adventure.’

It was later that night, when both of them had finally managed to curl up and go to sleep, (maybe a little close to Luffy but oh well) that Sabo was left to think about Ace’s words, and consider what _he_ was going to do now that he remembered his past (future).

Because, unfortunately, Ace was right. Sabo had originally wanted to be a pirate to be free of his parents, and while being a revolutionary had been good and he had helped so many people earn the freedom all of them had craved, he wasn’t so sure he would want to go through it all again if the last time he had just ended up back at the beginning.

This could be seen as a second chance, a chance to go back and do everything again only better, fixing the little mistakes and saving more lives. It could be a do over where he once again fought and freed the world only much more successfully.

But he had been selflessly fighting for other’s nearly all of his past life, given it all to the revolutionaries, maybe this wasn’t so much a second chance as it was, as Ace had decided, a chance to be selfish.

Besides, Ace was also right about another thing, Luffy got into _way_ too much trouble when left unsupervised.

**ASLASLASLASLASLASLALSALSALSALSASL**

The next day he had been officially introduced to his little brother, and the look on Luffy’s face as they more or less promised that he wouldn’t be alone again was something Sabo would treasure until his dying days. Between that smile and the fact that they had been hunting for breakfast for approximately five minutes when Luffy fell in water and needed rescuing it was enough to have Sabo swearing right alongside Ace that this time he was _more_ than happy to stick around and become part of his brother’s crew. He’d done the “fight the good fight” last life, this time he just wanted to look after his little brother and not worry about anyone else.

Good, Sabo thought to himself, now that that was decided they just had to survive his parents in such close proximity and the Grey terminal fire and everything would be fantastic.

… he really needed to talk to Ace again, because he bloody well hoped the freckled idiot had a plan for at least _that_.


	6. Kidnapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated before I seem to have no control over this story, and this chapter it decided to get very dark. Warnings in this chapter for torture, implied attempted non-con and mentions of attempted rape, as well as mentions of slavery. I am not entirely happy with how it turned out, but I seem to have very little control over this story and it refused to change to something else that would still fit things that happen later in this story, because apparently it is no longer the snap shots that it started out as.

Two days after Luffy was dropped off, Dadan woke up to another Brat casually sleeping next to her two charges. She was not amused to say the least, especially when the guy who had been on watch admitted that he had seen the third boy arrive, and had assumed he was seeing double due to the amount of sake he had drunk.

But her protests were ignored, and she was left to sit back and watch as the three boys fell into a rhythm of fighting and training and bringing in more meat than the bandits could possibly eat only for them to watch it disappear as the brats ate more than she ever thought possible.

And by the end of the second month with the three living under her roof they had wormed their way into her heart and she wouldn't trade them for the world.

For the brothers themselves, the two oldest where quietly surprised just how easily they fit into the same pattern they had had before Sabo had disappeared. They had expected their own ease, after all they remembered this being normal for them, but Luffy's ability to accept them as his brothers after only knowing Ace for a few days and Sabo for a matter of hours went against common sense.

On one hand they could just shove it off as Luffy being Luffy, a person whose existence seemed to spit in the face of common sense, on the other there was their own circumstance with memory that made them consider the possibility of this being something more.

Because Luffy was maybe just a little  _too_  accepting, even for him, of their undeniable strangeness. Of how affectionate and borderline obsessive they were with him, because while that was understandable to  _them_  after how they remembered saying goodbye and the enforced distance for so many years after, it should creep out Luffy at least a  _little_.

He shouldn't be able to read just how much they needed him and curl up against their side when he wanted a nap or as they prepared to go to bed at night.

He shouldn't cheer and celebrate when they asked him if he wanted to be their brother after only having met them a  _week_  ago, and so shouldn't really know them at all.

When Ace cried out at night from dreams of fire and blood and death that still plagued him ten years later, Luffy shouldn't shuffle closer and allow him to cling to him so tightly without anything more than a few sleepy murmurs of comfort.

Now, two months later, they had decided to give up on trying to figure out if Luffy remembered or if the lonely boy was just that happy to have them. After all, Luffy was just a ball of confusion that they loved because he had the habit of believing in people and performing the impossible, even if those people didn't really deserve his faith.

During that time, Sabo and Ace had many late-night chats as they curled up around a sleeping Luffy and waited to go to sleep themselves. Some of their conversations were trivial, things like how old they should consider themselves or who actually  _was_  the oldest brother out of the three of them.

Other conversations, not so much.

Sabo, at long last, had managed to drag from Ace the fact that him not having any plans was only  _half_ correct. It was half correct as he intended to follow Luffy and Luffy was not something you could plan for long term. It was half  _incorrect_  because he  _had_  actually put thoughts into plans about the fire, Sabo being kidnapped, and how to save the Whitebeard pirates. Apparently, a year or two during which you could do nothing but wiggle in a crib and suffer the indecency of being so dependant physically and so capable mentally left a lot of time for thinking and plotting revenge.

The only problem with their memories and current living habits was that it made it in credibly difficult to remember what was supposed to happen on exactly what date, or even keep up with the current date to begin with. As such it was no surprise that three months just up and went without them noticing, or remembering why that day three months after Luffy had arrived had been important in the first place.

It wasn't like they could have known that some events would be determined to occur, a change in their actions or not.

Ace, for his part, was kicking himself for not seeing this coming, memories of the future or not. He  _knew_  they had made a name for themselves with the terror the three of them installed with their robberies both in Grey Terminal and edge town. He  _knew_  that Blue Jam was a greedy bastard who had no problem killing kids if it meant he could get more money. He  _remembered_  said bastard demanding their treasure as the world around them burned, nearly damning both him and Luffy as well as themselves.

So, Ace concluded, he should have expected Porshemy to sneak up on Luffy while his little brother was distracted by something in the junk pile, kidnap him while Ace and Sabo were distracted beating up the cannon fodder he had brought along, and walk off saying he didn't need them as the little one would break first to tell them where they kept the money. He should have expected it, even if he hadn't brought attention to his brothers by stealing from Blue Jam first.

Maybe all this wouldn't have mattered if Luffy was the kind of seven-year-old to break and tell them in order to escape the pain, but he knew from experience that Luffy would rather die first and that thought terrified him.

Sabo looked at him as he  _finally_  finished strapping his second pipe to his back in case the bastards sliced through the first like they had last time. They weren't wasting time, but there was no point to this rescue mission if they went in unprepared and got Luffy killed in the process.

While Ace and Sabo where collecting their weapons, and tracking down the pirates' hide out for the second time in as many lives, Porshemy was getting frustrated.

He glared at the small boy as he swung from the rafters of the hut. The rumours that the boy had a devil fruit ability were not few, neither were those that claimed they had seen his rubber body in action for themselves. That had been easily counted with the use of his gloves.

What no one had bothered to mention, and so he  _didn't_  have a counter for, was just how stubborn the brat was, and his apparent complete disregard for his own life. The three terrors were well known, and had a surprising reputation considering that they were only ten and seven, but it hadn't occurred to him that the youngest of the group would be able to deal so well with pain. Admittedly he hadn't been going at it long but it should have been long enough for a little kid.

'I'm asking you brat, were they hell do you lot keep your treasure?' Porshemy yelled as pulled his arm back again, getting ready for another punch.

'Not Telling,' the kid yelled back though his tears.

Porshemy's response was to punch the kid, hard. He smirked as he felt the spikes sink into flesh and tear out again as the kid gave a pained cry and yelled that it hurt.

'Your surprisingly resilient for a little brat,' Porshemy commented as the kid swung from his rope, yelling. 'I wonder if you'll die before you break, that would-be pity. I really need to find that treasure you brats have stocked up for the captain, and you're no use to me dead.'

The boy didn't respond as Porshemy swung his fist back and hit him again, just kept yelling that it hurt.

'Porshemy,' one of the other pirates said after about the fifth hit Luffy had taken within as many minuets, 'I don't think it's going to work. You've heard the rumours same as I have, they say these boys are devils in human skin. Even this brat has a reputation of taking down his fair share of punks, we can do this from dawn till dusk and I don't think he'll tell us anything.'

'Shut up!' Porshemy roared as his next punch connected with the unfortunate laky that had designed to speak up. 'Blue Jam wants these brats' money, it should be quite a stash by now, you know as well as I do what he'll do to us if we don't get it! How can we call ourselves pirates if we get beaten by a group of brats? Surely you know better than to put your stock in rumours?'

The man stared down at his unconscious crew mate, annoyed that he was out after one punch when the brat was still awake and tight lipped after at least twenty. A voice muttered in the back of his head that this was something to think about, that maybe there was something to the rumours after all, but it was quickly pushed out by his greed and reason, as those kinds of things were impossible.

Instead he started to wonder about something else.

'Blue Jam wants money,' he stated, surprisingly calm, 'and there's more than one way to get it from the bodies of a couple of brats.' The grin that spread across his face was just as fowl as the stench from the trash heap they frequented. 'I wonder just how much those Nobles would pay for a slave with a devil fruit ability.'

The other pirates began chuckling at the idea. 'Maybe you should test him, Porshemy, see just what uses a body like that has.'

Porshemy grinned even more as he unhooked the struggling boy from the ceiling. 'I might do just that.'

When Sabo and Ace arrived at the hide-out, pipes at the ready, they almost froze at the sight in front of them. Against enemies like these pirates the slight hesitation didn't cost them much, but both knew that in later fights a moment like that could be the difference between life and death.

But even then, they didn't think the sight of their little brother covered in blood, tied up, and held to the floor while the men around him pulled at his flesh and clothes was something that would ever cease to make their blood run cold. The fact that they had more or less followed Luffy's shouts to his location did not help.

The so-called pirates didn't know what hit them. Sabo vaguely noticed that they were significantly stronger this time round then they had been the  _last_  time they had had to rescue Luffy from these idiots. In seconds Ace was dashing around, smashing furniture and heads as a distraction while Sabo used a knife to cut Luffy free before making his way towards the hole in the wall they had left during their entrance. This felt familiar to Sabo, he knew it should, but he hoped for one major difference from last time.

Which, apparently, he wasn't going to get.

Porshemy was the only one left standing after Ace's rush around the room, but his brother didn't seem inclined to run any time soon. In fact, if Ace's face was anything to go by, he wouldn't be leaving until he had put Porshemy's cold corps in the ground himself.

Sabo cursed, on one hand this was foolishness and they needed to get Luffy out of there  _now_. However, they were both stronger, furious at what these freaks had done to their little brother, and if Ace was going to beat this guy up then like hell was Sabo going to let him get all the satisfaction.

He set Luffy down a lot gentler than he had last time, and turned to face the bastard that had dared to threaten his brothers.

It was, unsurprisingly, a lot easier to beat the hell out of Porshemy than the last time they faced him. The bastard, however, also seemed to be slightly more determined this time round. Ace and Sabo both knew they had knocked the guy senseless, so they were more than a little surprised to see him stand back up again when they turned to leave.

He wouldn't remain that way for long.

'Gomu Gomu no … Bazooka!' their little brother's voice startled both Ace and Sabo as they watched his arms extend out between them and hit Porshemy in the chest, finally putting him down for good with all the damage that Ace and Sabo had already done to him.

The move would have been even more impressive if the return of his arms hadn't managed to knock Luffy out completely. Needless to say, that "panicked" was a  _slight_  understatement for how Ace and Sabo felt after watching their little brother collapse to the ground unconscious.

Sabo would later theorise that because of how young he was, and how hurt he was already, his body hadn't been about to handle the recoil. Ace would kindly ask him to shut up.

Luffy woke a few minutes later to frantic shouting and Ace and Sabo desperately checking him over to try and find all his injuries. Luffy burst into tears about how scared he was the second he realised that he was safe, and this only made his older brothers even more frantic. Things eventually calmed down and found Luffy crying into Ace's shoulder, while Ace just wrapped him in trembling arms and told him in a shaking voice not to be such a cry baby.

'I'm not a cry baby, I'm strong!' Luffy yelled indignantly.

Ace gave weak chuckle, 'Yeah, you are strong,' he managed to choke out, 'but I'm still stronger, and I'm the older brother, and as your stronger, older brother, I kindly request that you refrain from scaring us like that ever again, you damn cry baby.'

Sabo just stood back, his own frame trembling as he tried desperately to calm his own wildly beating heart. A few minutes later had him standing next to his brothers and trying to enfold both of them in hug without it getting too crowded.

It was as they were patching Luffy up around the camp fire in what they had claimed as their clearing that they finally got up the guts to asking Luffy exactly what had happened.

'He said he was going to sell me as a slave to the nobles,' both Ace and Sabo went very still at this, before Sabo returned to his bandaging and motioned for Luffy to continue. 'He hit me with spiked gloves, and when I wouldn't tell them where our treasure was he said he would just have to get money by selling me. Then one of the others suggest they see just what use the Nobles could make out of someone who was rubber. They took me down from the ceiling and that's when you arrived.'

Luffy gave a small hiccupping sob, 'I was so scared!' he started wailing for what felt like the hundredth time that day. 'I didn't think I would see you again!' Part of Ace wanted to tell his brother to shut up, he hated when he cried and the pain it seemed to cause in his own chest.

'Luffy,' Sabo muttered quietly, 'did any of them … touch you?'

Luffy looked confused, Ace wasn't sure whether to take this as a good sign or not. 'They hit me, and tugged on my skin, I just told you that.'

Sabo looked slightly frustrated, he didn't know how to ask what he needed to so that Luffy understood. Ace, surprisingly, asked for him.

'Did any of them touch you in places where your underwear would normally be?' now Luffy looked really confused.

'No, why? Does that matter? Would it matter if they did?'

Sabo breathed a quiet sigh of relief. 'It wouldn't have mattered to us, but that's good, it's good that they didn't.' Ace looked similarly relieved. Luffy still didn't get it.

Eventually he just shrugged it off and curled up between his brothers, both of which kept firm grips on him which made him feel happy and safe, though he would never admit it, and fell asleep quickly.

Neither Sabo or Ace would fall asleep for a long, long time that night. Not until the sun was almost ready to show itself again for the new day.


	7. Explanations

Ace and Sabo stared down at Luffy as he slept surprisingly peacefully between them, neither willing to let go of his hands or risk shutting their eyes and seeing the images that were waiting for them in sleep.

God but they were so scared. No one would deserve that, especially not someone as naive and happy as Luffy. To hear that they were going to sell him, that it was likely that they were going to do exactly what it had looked like if they hadn't arrived, had both their stomachs rolling and hearts beating in such a way that made sleep impossible.

'What's going on, Ace?' Sabo muttered as he looked at his brothers bandaged face. 'This didn't happen last time. I mean, Luffy got kidnapped, but that was because we stole their money, and they didn't say anything about selling him off that time. He's also more beat up now, even though we got there quicker.'

Ace was silent for a moment, before talking very quietly so as not to wake their sleeping brother. 'Maybe they hadn't, but we don't know that they wouldn't have.'

Sabo looked at him, Ace shrugged before trying again. 'Blue Jam was, is, obsessed with money. During the fire,' Sabo flinched, 'he demanded that me and Luffy show him where our treasure was, even though he knew it would mean he couldn't escape. It wouldn't be to out of line for him to order something like this. Porshemy I'm fairly sure died after he lost to us, so neither of us really know him that well.

'What I'm saying is, just because we're the only ones changing things doesn't mean that what we change doesn't effect something else. This time round we were stronger, and had a larger reputation quicker. Even before Luffy arrived the people in Grey Terminal knew us all by name, once we had Luffy we were even worst. Is it so surprising that Blue Jam would kill a couple of kids because people are talking about how much they had managed to steel in the last three months and that one of them is an actual devil fruit user?'

Understanding flickered in Sabo's eyes, and he continued Ace's train of thought. 'Last time Porshemy was just trying to get back what we took, this time any old money would do. Also, then he had the dead line of returning the money to Blue Jam on time and he knew Luffy knew where it was, but he didn't know how we were connected, now the whole terminal knows about us three. Fuck!' he swore a little loudly. Ace placed a finger to his lips and looked down as Luffy stirred in his sleep, letting out a breath when he settled back down.

Sabo glared but went back to whispering. 'Does this mean that by refusing to do everything the same we change things a lot bigger than us, even though what we do might not seem that big in the long run? That by simply treating Luffy like a brother earlier we may have lost our advantage and made things  _worse_?'

Ace just shrugged helplessly. He had pointed out what he had noticed, now it was Sabo's turn to think things through. After all, he had always been the kind, smart, sane(ish) brother, if one of them was going to finally understand things it would most likely be him.

Sabo's glare turned into a frown as his brain worked over time to try and get things to make sense. Eventually he started to think out loud so that Ace could chime in if he wanted to.

'We still don't actually know how all this is possible. You woke up after dying in your new born body as if you had just had a really weird nap. I remembered the exact same way I remembered the last time I got back a whole lot of forgotten memories after about ten years of not having them. We don't know what caused it, when it caused it, or even what it  _did_  in the first place. We don't know the rules, or even if we're the only ones.' Ace went pale at that implication. If they didn't know what had made them start over they didn't know  _who_  else might be in a similar situation. They had worried about Luffy remembering, but he didn't even want to think about if someone like  _Teach_  had remembered, or Akainu.

Sabo saw the look on his face, and continued grimly. 'We can only hope that we're either the only ones, or the others were all friends, either way it's not something we can worry about now.' Ace nodded, Sabo kept trying to figure it out.

'Both times Luffy was kidnapped it was around the three-month mark from when he first arrived. On one hand it could mean nothing, but it could also be a sign that even with us changing things, some stuff is just going to stay the same, or at least similar, to how it was the first time.'

Ace frowned, thinking about what Sabo had said. 'So, because we don't know the rules, we don't know if what we change will make this whole thing unrecognisable from what we lived before, or if somethings won't change no matter how much we try and stop them.' Ace concluded.

'There is also the possibility that, like with Porshemy, some events will still happen but slightly differently, and it's up to us to try and figure out how to change it to something better rather than something worse,' Sabo added. 'We also don't know which events fall into which category, some we might be able to avoid all together while others may happen exactly the same no matter what we do.'

Ace looked rather disgruntle all of a sudden. 'I have to change my plans, don't I? Things like Thatch's life are a little too important to trust on one, long distance, move and hope that everything changes the way I want it to.'

'Yeah, we might have to rethink some of those and keep a closer eye on them than we were originally intended. We might also have to bring Luffy in on it if we really were planning to follow him as our captain.'

'Fuck,' Ace hissed, copying Sabo from earlier but making sure it wouldn't disturb Luffy.

Speaking of their little brother …

'He's stronger, way stronger than he was at this age before. He couldn't aim to save his life, and as far as I knew he hadn't come up with that move until around the time I left to start the Spades.'

'So, does this mean he remembers and just isn't saying anything, or that he doesn't remember but us being here is affecting him more than just not having to spend three months of his life trying to survive while you try to kill him?' Sabo asked. Ace gave him a look at the comment on his less than clean record with attacking future family members, but responded as if Sabo hadn't been making a point.

'You really think we'll ever be able to answer that question?'

'No.'

The hours, or it could have been minuets, passed quietly as both boys just lay back and carefully watched their younger brother sleep in the flickering fire light. They needed the visual confirmation of watching him breathing after the fright they had had earlier that day.

'We need to get stronger, all three of us. Just because were stronger than before doesn't mean it's enough.'

The silence was agreement enough, and both lay down with eyes wide, taking in every sift of their little brother in fear and worry, until exhaustion finally pulled them under with the new light of dawn.

**ASLASLASLASLASLASLALSALSALSALSASL**

The next few months saw very little sleep for the older two of the trio. During the day they trained, hunted, and worked to finally compete their tree house so as to gain more freedom from Dadan and the bandits. During the night they would plot and plan as they began to try and piece together the circumstances of whatever the hell was going on with being able to remember what was  _going_  to happen as well as the past. Needless to say, the last one failed miserably.

The following months the brothers also made it a habit to actually keep track of what the date was and the events mentioned in the news, since those had proved the best so far at allowing them to figure out exactly what to expect and how long they had to try and prevent Sabo's kidnapping and the fire that the nobles had planned.

They also, at some stage, needed to figure out what the hell they were going to tell Luffy. Both brothers had secrets that were less secrets, and more just things they didn't know how to tell him without the original prompt and not have it come out just sounding completely random. They also didn't know how to break it to Luffy that they knew what his dream was and were rather hoping he would allow them to join his crew.

Yeah, that was going to be a tough bullet to swallow, Sabo thought. As easy as it was to say they were going to follow Luffy, it was another thing entirely to tell your little brother that you recognised him as Captain. It was one of those things they agreed could wait till later.

… did Luffy even know what the treasure was for? Ace honestly didn't know; he thought they must have said it at some point, surely.

In the end they told Luffy the same way they had last time, after Sabo's father had caught sight of him in the middle of a dine and dash.

Sabo looked very uncomfortable as Luffy tried to demand an explanation, and downright betrayed when instead of backing him up, Ace took Luffy's side. Eventually he cracked and told Luffy everything.

'I'm the son of a noble … the truth is, both of my real parents are still out there … I'm not a real orphan … and I wasn't born on the trash heap either. The man who was trying to stop me just now was my father. I'm sorry I had to lie to you.'

'Well, if you're sorry then it's fine! I forgive you.' Luffy, he really was too good to survive in this world without someone to protect him.

Sabo decided to explain anyway, even if he was already forgiven. Ace knew so it was only right that Luffy did to. 'All they ever cared about was having an heir to protect the family status and fortune. They never cared about me! If I couldn't marry into the royal family, then I was worthless. They made me work day in, day out, to improve my chances. My parents were always fighting because I wasn't good enough for them. There never was any place for me in that house. This may be kind of rude to you guys, but … I was "alone" even though I had parents.

'The nobles always scorned and despaired the trash heap … but compared to that horrible elite district, where I didn't even have room to breathe … where my whole damn life was planned out for me … I'd take the trash heap any day.

'Ace … Luffy! We have to make it out to sea someday! We'll leave this country behind … and gain our freedom! I want to see the world in all its glory and write a book about what I find. If it's sailing I'm studying for then I don't care how hard I have to work! We've got to get stronger, and become real pirates!'

'Eh? Pirates? That's the same as me!' Luffy seemed so happy at the idea of them all being pirates together, Ace and Sabo on the other hand were wondering how they could have gone so long without telling their little brother that that was what they wanted to be, and feeling slightly guilty at the same time as they questioned Luffy's intelligence.

Ace just laughed, 'You don't have to tell me Sabo. I'm going to be a pirate that can defeat everyone who stands in my way … someone who can protect what's important to me. I don't care if the whole world refuses to except me, I don't care if they end up terrified of me. So long as I can keep my treasure with me it doesn't matter!' Luffy laughed, not understanding that the treasure Ace was talking about was him.

'Then I'm gonna be the Pirate King!' He declared.

Ace and Sabo could have told him it wouldn't happen, could have looked at him in shock like they had last time, could have ridiculed him. Instead they just smiled, because at least one of them had seen him complete that dream in another life time.

'Of all the things you could have come out with …' Ace said with a fond smile.

'We'll have to keep an eye on you, that's for sure.' Sabo could barely control his laughter.

And just like last time, Sabo realised that he would have to point out the original problem with their goals, no matter how potentially embarrassing the rest of that conversation may prove to be.

'Isn't it going to be a problem if all three of us want to be the captain?'

Ace just shrugged, 'Could be an issue, I always thought you would be the navigator, Sabo. I'm not sure I need to be captain, but I wouldn't mind it.'

'What? You guys should join my ship!' Ace and Sabo looked at each other and laughed at Luffy's statement. Accepting an invitation was slightly less embarrassing than trying to figure out how to ask.

'We'll think about it,' Ace eventually got out. 'It might be hard to follow the orders of my weak younger brother, then again someone has to keep you out of trouble.'

Luffy stuck out his tongue, 'Meanie Ace.' Sabo wondered that their brother couldn't hear the words for what they were, a promise to never leave him alone.

'Well, it doesn't matter in the end. We're all three brothers, we drank to it, and that's a bond that will never die.' Luffy and Ace cheered at Sabo's words, and with that they were running back to the tree house.

And so, life continued and seasons changed. The three of them trained to get stronger, and Ace and Sabo began to put in place their plan for trying to save the people of Grey Terminal and deal with the fire. Both kept careful tabs of the day and if Luffy was confused as to why they suddenly started avoiding the trash heap and town then he didn't ask. If Luffy was upset when Ace eventually told him who his father was one night when neither could sleep then it didn't show. If all three of them suddenly got very clingy as the day of the Celestial Dragon's arrival got closer than no one mentioned it.

And a week before the fire was supposedly going to be lit, Ace and Sabo were ready.


	8. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the more violent chapters, you have been warned.

Dadan watched as the Blue Jam pirates continued to walk all over the Grey Terminal with crates and boxes, consider a map, before placing them in what seemed random places and walking off. A small investigation of the contents of those boxes had her, and the rest of her gang, seeing red.

God Damn, those brats were right.

Ace and Sabo had approached her a few days ago with their suspicions, and Ace had mentioned casually that one of the people who was organising it was also after Sabo for some reason or another. She didn't care who was after the brat, didn't care if it was some noble that turned out to be the boy's father, he was hers and had been since those other two decided to drag him home without asking permission.

She was a bandit, steeling, looting and kidnapping were all part of everyday life, but even she had boundaries. She, for one, could not agree with burning hundreds of people alive just because some stuffed-up Noble wanted the place clean when some big shot decided to drop in. She also couldn't stand the idea of anyone taking what she had so rightfully claimed as hers.

though Dadan had to say, she was impressed with the boys, not that she would ever tell them. Their plan for this would kill two birds with one stone.

Now, how to just make sure it all went off as it was supposed to, and they might all make it home alive at the end of the night.

**ASLASLASLASLASLASLALSALSALSALSASL**

When the nobles finally gave the order to set the trash alight the sky filled with ash and the glow of the flames could be seen for kilometres around. The populace of Grey Terminal watched as their homes and the treasures they had built up over the years were burned to nothing from the safety of the edge of the sea of flames.

Over the last week, the bandits of the mountain had been over heard talking, discussing rumours they had heard from their victims and a few drunk pirates. All their conversations seemed to revolve around the same thing.

The trash heap was going to burn, the Pirates were going to help the Nobles do it.

At first there had been outrage, a need for justice at the idea that these monsters making pretend of being human were willing to burn them to their deaths. But then some of the more observant scavengers had noticed what the bandits were doing, they were shifting the creates. At night, after the pirates had left, the bandits were casually moving the boxes around so that, while the stuff towards the walls would burn and burn fast, there would a be a delay as it tried to burn back towards the edge of the pile, a delay that would probably save the lives of hundreds.

Those that were older and wiser realised that if the nobles were willing to burn them once, why wouldn't they keep going until nothing was left? If they stopped the fire what was to stop there from being a second.

And as they watched their lives burn before their eyes and wondered at the cruelty of the so-called nobility to throw them away with the rest of the trash, a ship pulled up beside them and offered them a chance to fight and get their revenge. What could they do but answer as the flames parted the rest of the way so that they could pull themselves and those they cared about to safety. When they burned grey terminal, the nobles had added fuel to a different fire, one that sought to burn the world, not that they would know it until it was too late.

When the fire finally died and the clean-up crew arrived very few remains could be found, including one body that would be recognisable when all others had long been burned to ash, a child one of the nobles had been interested in.

Outlook would be informed of the death of his son, he would not grieve, and instead pay the men to keep their mouths shut about where they had found the body, and dispose of it accordingly.

**ASLASLASLASLASLASLALSALSALSALSASL**

The end result was that of a plan well executed, but so long as the completed product is correct it is often hard to tell just how much of a ruined mess the intended actions had become by the end. The plan itself went off without a hitch, burn Grey Terminal in such a way that the others could escape and plant a dead body that looked like Sabo so that they could fake his death. There was just one hitch, that was less a hitch and more of a disastrous, completely unrelated, occurrence that happened to transpire at the same time.

Sabo grinned as he watched Dragon's ship sail up and collect all the displaced people of Grey Terminal, he knew from working with them last time that they would be alright. Ace might not have looked quite as happy at the idea of Luffy's father being this close to his son while he was in trouble and not helping, but he supposed it wasn't really something the man would have had any way of knowing.

And he'd saved Sabo's life so Ace guessed he had to give him some credit.

Now that they had seen the others off safely, and knew that they didn't have the deaths of a couple of hundred people on their conscious, they started to head back to the Bandits hut were Luffy was waiting for them. While the boy had wanted to go with them, there was no way in hell they were letting their little brother anywhere near that inferno, he may strong but strength had absolutely nothing to do with how fireproof you were.

It wasn't that they specifically thought he would be in danger next to them, it's just that Luffy was a trouble magnet. Absolutely everything that had resulted in Luffy being in trouble last time had found a way to happen again, they weren't taking any chances this close to something this deadly.

When they opened the door to the hut and found Dadan out cold with a bump on her head and no Luffy, well, they were kicking themselves for leaving their brother unattended and not suspecting something like this would happen.

'Sabo,' Ace growled out as they found themselves running back  _towards_  the fire, 'remind me that, no matter how much sense it makes at the time, I am not to let Luffy out of my sight ever again.'

'Ace,' Sabo puffed back, 'please do me the favour of making sure I remember as well.'

Even this far away the heat from the fire was oppressive, and it was now near impossible to hear anything above the roar of the flames. They had no idea who had taken their little brother, or even if anyone had taken him in the first place (they didn't  _think_  he could have knocked out Dadan, but you never know) and so they had no idea where to start looking, or even how they were going to look in those hellish flames to begin with.

It was moments like these they wished that their skill with Haki had come over with their memories, but like all their other skills it was something that needed training, and Haki was hard to learn at the best of times and near impossible as a child.

But just because they had so far been unable to train with Haki did not prevent them from following the strange feeling they got when it lead them into the fire, especially when they realised that it was leading both of them in the same direction.

Towards Blue Jams old hide out.

And then above the sounds of the fire they heard a sound they had hoped to never hear again, Luffy screaming.

Considering that all the proper cover was burning, it was surprisingly easy to sneak up on the pirates as they stood, arguing with someone they vaguely recognised as being one of the lower ranked bandits, amongst the flames. Luffy lay at their feet; cut up, bound, screaming as the flames kept leaping at him to lick as his cloths and flesh, and completely ignored by those around him. Well, almost, every now and then when his screams got too loud Blue Jam would stamp down on him mercilessly, given that those stomps were actually doing damage, Sabo suspected that he had spikes on the bottom of his shoes, though why Sabo had no idea.

Over the sounds of the flames and Luffy's cries they just managed to catch what the bandit was yelling.

'I'm telling you, this is Dragon's kid! Those puffed up nobles will give you a killing for him. If you ring them up now they'll let us in and we can split the money!' The bandit was yelling and Ace's heart almost stopped.

'Why would I give something as valuable as Dragon's kid over to those bastards who left us out here to burn? No, I'll just get the kid to take me to where they keep their treasure, use it and him to start again once all this is over, and find a way to kill that God Damn King when I get the chance.'

'You can't do that, it'll take too long and we'll all burn to death!'

Blue Jam just smirked. 'No, we won't,' and with that he lifted his gun and shot the bandit in the head.

And Sabo and Ace were running, sacrificing their cover to try and get to their little brother, their little brother who didn't deserve to be used as a bargaining chip, or to be made an example of, or any other horror the government could come up with. Their little brother who had stopped struggling and could only groan in pain as the heat and the fire got to him on top of his already obvious wounds.

They had actually managed to grab Luffy and attempt to start running again by the time the pirates had realised what was going on. The chaos of the flames and smoke worked to their advantage as with all the other sounds and flickering light it was hard to keep track of just two more shadows.

Unfortunately, it was not to last as Blue Jam re-aimed his gun and fired at them, clipping Sabo's shoulder and forcing him to drop Luffy.

'And what the hell do you brats think you're doing? That's my precious captive you're trying to take there,' Blue Jam snorted. 'Well, it doesn't matter. You two would probably be a lot more useful showing us to where you keep the money. Do it or I'll put a bullet in the blond's brain, just like I did him.'

Ace started to panic as the gun didn't waver from Sabo's head and another bastard began reaching for Luffy's still body. He needs them to stop, stop,  _stop_.

'Stop it!' he wasn't aware of what he was doing until all the pirates except for Blue Jam were lying in heaps on the Rubbish, waiting for the fire to claim them.

He barely had a second to absorb that he had just awoken his Conquerors Haki for the first time since he was born in this life when the stock of the gun connected painfully with the back of his head. He's lucky he's a D and a thick headed one at that or he would be suffering from a concussion, as it is his ears were ringing and his eyes spun.

'You bastard, what the hell did you do? Answer me you fucking –'

A loud bang cut the pirate off and Ace could only stare up at Sabo as he held a smoking gun he had taken from one of the fallen pirates in his good hand. In slow motion the pirate Blue Jam tilted over before falling to the ground, completely lifeless with a single bullet hole in his skull.

'Don't touch my brothers,' the words barely reached Ace over the crackling of the flames. And after all the shouting and screaming and cursing the silence was almost loud even though the Flames were skill sizzling and random bits of Trash gave off small explosions as they combusted. None of them moved for what felt like so long, too long with the fire coming for them and Luffy unable to move.

'Let's go, Sabo,' Ace eventually said, breaking the unnatural stillness that had fallen over them.

'Oh god, Ace, I just –'

'Let's go, Sabo,' Ace repeated, more forcefully this time. He could understand that this was freaking Sabo out, he didn't know if Sabo remembered killing before, but even if he had there is something final in a single bullet and the sudden destruction of a life that never really stops getting to you. But they didn't have time for that now because escape routes were being cut off and if they weren't quick then it would be Sabo's real body in the fire for his family to find rather than a fake.

With shaking hands Sabo helped Ace get Luffy onto his back and the two were running back the way they came. They didn't stop running when they hit the trees and left the fire behind, they kept going right up until they reached the bandits' hut where a newly woken up Dadan was racing out the door and nearly collided with them in her hurry to try and find them and Luffy, rightly fearing that they were in the fire.

The bandits had had to physically restrain Ace and Sabo so that they could work on Luffy and get the two of them bandaged up as well. Just because they were not as bad didn't mean they weren't hurt. While they were being treated Dadan asked what happened and they had to explain about the traitor but managed to just skim over how they got Luffy back. Later Ace would once again mention that just because they hadn't didn't mean they wouldn't when they remembered that that particular bandit had originally died during a raid that would have occurred while the bandits were moving boxes this time round.

And finally, all three were curled up in their room in the Bandits hut, Dadan unwilling to let the three out of her sight after she had nearly lost them all. They were covered in bandages and Luffy looked something like a mummy and really weird with his hair so short after parts of it had been burnt off, but they were together and they were  _alive_  and they were  _safe_  and that's more than they could have said at that time in their previous life. Maybe they were screwing up big time, but listening to Luffy cry that he's happy they're alive made them think that they couldn't be doing too badly.

The two oldest brothers were keeping a close eye on Luffy in the dark room when Sabo finally broke the silence.

'Forget getting stronger,' Sabo muttered, 'the three of us could be the strongest people in the world and Luffy would still find potentially life-threatening trouble to get mixed up in. We need more eyes to watch over him, not just more strength to protect him.'

'Is there anyone we could actually trust to keep an eye on him though? I mean it's not like we can drop him off with some random person and expect them both to come out unscathed.'

Sabo put some actual consideration into the question. 'There are several people we  _could_  trust sometime in the future, mostly from various allied pirate crews that haven't actually been formed yet, but those won't do us any good for a long time, probably not until were actually ready to set sail.'

It was amazing just how wrong that statement turned out to be.


	9. ASL+Z

Zoro stared at the dense mass of jungle standing before him. After several months of drifting around east blue with only the tugging in his chest to guide him he had finally arrived at the right island. It wasn’t the first time he had landed somewhere in his drifting, but this time the tugging was coming from somewhere in the middle of that jungle rather than somewhere passed it, he had gotten very good at telling the difference.

Part of him had been sad to leave Kuina, a smaller part had whispered that he should stay at the dojo a little longer and train so that he was stronger and better able to protect whatever was running around in that forest. But both parts had been told not so politely to shut up, the thing in the forest was _trouble_ , and needed all the supervision it could get.

Zoro wouldn’t say he _remembered_ exactly, but after the bump on the head he had a better idea of what he had forgotten. He knew that he was going to find something, or someone, that would give him a home and a place to belong as well as help him fulfil his dreams. He knew that, when he was nineteen, there were places he would have to go in order to meet people he had to look after, even if names and faces were more than a little hazy.

He knew he was in for a bunch of trouble and a crazy adventure and that, as much of a hassle other people were probably going to say it would be, he had every intention of doing the whole thing over almost exactly the same. Because even if he didn’t remember specifics he remembered being _happy_ and _content_ and he was selfish enough to want that back and the rest of the world could go _hang_.

And it was with that feeling that he was able to tell Kuina that he was leaving, she was his sister and he would treasure her as precious family, but this was something he had to do. He’d go and get stronger and she would get over stupid gender issues and become stronger and they would meet again on the grand line and challenge each other for the right to claim the title of strongest swordsman.

Her father had been a little … harder to convince that he should be able to set out already. The man had been more than slightly worried when Zoro had come crashing down those stairs, and horrified when calmly informed that if it hadn’t been Zoro broken then it would have been Kuina dead, the idea of losing either of his children was not something any parent would want to deal with. It was no surprise then that he had been unwilling to let either “child” out of his sight.

But Zoro was stubborn, even more so now than he had been before, and it had quickly become apparent that he was less asking for permission and more informing them of his decision. It was obvious that he would leave anyway and if the man helped Zoro prepare than there was a higher chance of him surviving. At least he knew that Zoro _should_ be strong enough to keep himself out of too much trouble against most people in the east blue, especially after seeing that three-sword style that the boy had perfected in secret.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been so reluctant to let the boy leave if it weren’t for the fact that he _knew_ the boy would never find his way back.

And so, after several months of lying on his back waiting for it to heal and several more of everyone fussing over him as he trained to get back his strength, Zoro was finally able to leave with three of the dojo’s best swords at his hip.

And now here he was, wondering through a jungle of large trees and hanging vines and filled with the suspicion that he was being watched and that the animals here might be _slightly_ larger than what he was used to. But at least he knew where he was _going_ , even if that point seemed to be rather focused on moving through the jungle at rather absurd speeds. He was now almost certain that whatever he was following was alive, and possibly human because that _felt_ right, because the other option was that he was about to be in for one hell of a fight.

**ASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZ**

Zoro stared at the kid before him and felt his eyebrow twitch at the ridiculous grin he was getting in return. He _knew_ this was what he had been searching for, that this kid who didn’t look more than about eight at the most, was the treasure that he needed to protect, and was alright with that, really. He might have met the kid just seconds ago when he sliced the angry bear that was attacking him, but he _knew_ this kid, in the same way he knew every blade he touched and how to fight with swords, it was that same feeling based on a memory he couldn’t quite recall. And even if he hadn’t had all of that, the tugging in his chest was pointing _straight at_ the kid.

No, what bothered him was that he had only just met the kid and the boy already seemed to trust him with his life. While Zoro wouldn’t take advantage of it, there were quite a few people who would, and Zoro knew that meant that he would have to keep a _very_ close eye on him to make sure those kinds of people would never get the chance.

‘Hey, that was so cool! How did you that? what’s your name? where did you come from? How come your hair is green?’ and on and on it went with barely a pause for breath. Zoro found himself smiling in amusement, though he knew it should be annoying rather than funny. Eventually the kid had to stop to breath, and Zoro did his best to answer all the questions that had been thrown his way.

‘I’m Zoro, Roronoa Zoro. I’m a swordsman from … somewhere in east blue, I don’t remember where. And my hair’s just green, I don’t think there’s any reason for it.’

‘Cool! Join my pirate crew!’

It may have been a sentence spoken by a kid, and he might not be part of the crew _yet_ , but to Zoro it rang like a captain’s order and there was only one response that was appropriate to that.

‘Sure, Captain.’

The next thing he knew he was trapped in some sort of rubbery cage that seemed to be made out of over stretched limbs. All he could think was that the ability suited the kid.

**ASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZ**

Sabo was worried, Ace was just plain freaking out; Luffy had run off somewhere, and they had no idea how to find their eight-year-old, trouble magnet of a brother.

Since the fire several months ago they had been trying to train their Haki, encouraged by the fact that Ace was already an awoken Conqueror. The _slight_ problem was that, while they were getting better, Observation was the one they were both the absolute _worst_ at, and they were still rather poor at the other types to begin with.

What that meant was that they had no idea _how_ to find Luffy in any other way than following the path of the most chaos and hoping Luffy wasn’t too beat up on the other end of it. It didn’t help that, even all these months later, they panicked a bit and woke with nightmares about just how close it had come to losing him during the fire.

Eventually they came to the end of the path of broken branches that looked as if something very _large_ had come crashing through. The sight at the other end made them freeze while they tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

The bear, which had to be one of the biggest ones they had ever seen, was not what had them pausing, nor was it the fact that said animal seemed to be cut up, it wasn’t even the fact that Luffy was looking at them with a grin on his face as if nothing had happened.

No, what made them pause was the person their little brother had his arms wrapped around, a person with very familiar looking green hair…

‘Zoro!?’ they both shouted out at the exact same time, because while this boy was quite a few too many years younger than when they had first seen him to be truly recognisable, the green hair and three swords kind of gave him away.

‘Yeah?’ that was it, Sabo wondered if the man, teenager, boy, whatever, was really so laid back as to just accept two random strangers shouting his name, while he sat calmly within in the rather far from normal grasp of a third person he was not supposed to know, or if he was just too stupid to realise what was wrong with the situation.

Of course, there was a third option … which he really didn’t want to think about, but then again it would make so much _sense_ …

‘So Cool! Zoro, you already met my brothers?’

‘Nope,’ Well, there goes that theory, ‘but they seem really familiar so it’s possible I just forgot.’

Ace looked at him questioningly. ‘You forgot?’

‘Yeah, I seem to be doing that a lot recently; I find a lot of things are familiar, but the details are hazy. Oh, well, doesn’t really matter, if it’s important I’ll remember eventually, always do.’

Ace and Sabo looked at each other, looked at the pair in front of them (who were _way_ too comfortable for their liking) and looked at each other again. They really had no idea what to make of that, it almost sounded like he was like them in that he remembered his past (or future) life, but unlike them he didn’t remember it clearly. It was almost like Sabo before his two-day nap, but with a little bit more information.

Luffy’s sudden laughter brought the two out of their thoughts on what the hell was going on and brought them back to the present. ‘Doesn’t matter if you’ve met before, we know each other now. Zoro, these are my brothers, Ace and Sabo. Ace, Sabo, he said he’d join my pirate crew, isn’t that great!’

 _No_ , they wanted to say, _that’s not great. What kind of person suddenly agrees to join the pirate crew of a_ child _that he just met. Also, what the hell is he doing here, last time you didn’t meet until after you were seventeen. This is a major fuck up in the time line and who the hell knows how it’ll change things._

‘As good as it is that you have more people on the crew, you don’t know anything about this person.’ Sabo tried to point out as the voice of reason.

‘What’s that matter? Zoro is Zoro, just like Ace is Ace and Sabo is Sabo.’

God damn cute, idiotic, little brothers. Why did Luffy have to go and say something as adorable as that?

‘Yes,’ Ace said, ‘but I want to know who “Zoro” is because I’m the big brother and it is important for me to be sure that no one hurts my little brothers, Future Pirate King or no. Also, if I don’t know him then how can I help protect him when we fight?’

Sabo silently thanked any Gods willing to listen that he had Ace to help get through to Luffy. Though he wasn’t sure how Ace would take the information that he and Luffy seemed to think alike, especially since Luffy didn’t seem to think at all most of the time.

‘So, Zoro, what brings you to Dawn island?’ Ace asked, trying to be polite and not reveal how much he wanted to rip the other boy away from his younger brother.

Zoro, of course, just shrugged. ‘A feeling.’

Sabo blinked, ‘want to elaborate?’

‘Not really.’ Seeing their look, he did anyway. ‘Some things just need protecting, that’s all. I want to be the world’s strongest swordsman so that no one can take away what’s precious to me. I … remembered … that this would be a good place to get strong … and that I there was something precious to me here. That’s all.’

Sabo blinked again. Zoro, as he was now, was confusing. He was a strange mix of uncertain child and confidant adult, and there didn’t seem to be any pattern to which he would be at any given moment any more than there was to the flipping of a coin. Ace was thinking along the same lines, and wondering if the two of them ever came across this way.

‘And you joined Luffy’s crew because?’

‘“Luffy”?’ Zoro looked legitimately confused.

‘The brat that’s wrapped around you like some sort of vine,’ Sabo said. ‘Please tell me the idiot didn’t forget to introduce himself and you joined his crew without even knowing is name.’

Another careless shrug. ‘He asked,’ Zoro wasn’t going to elaborate this time. ‘And I know him, somehow, even if he forgot to tell me his name.’

‘I did?’ Luffy looked confused, ‘Oh, I did, I’m Monkey D. Luffy, and I’m going to be the King of Pirates!’

‘Gathered that,’ Zoro gave them a considering look, ‘I thought you were Ace’s brother, not aiming to be his father.’ Ace and Sabo froze while both Luffy _and_ Zoro suddenly looked confused. ‘Ignore that, no idea what it was, but do me a favour and wake me up if I start having nightmares about swirly eyebrows or ero-cooks flirting with a money grabbing witch. Happens occasionally and I don’t even _want_ to remember where it’s from.’

‘What’s an ero-cook?’ Luffy asked innocently while his brothers started to freak out.

Zoro just patted him on the head, ‘something your brothers will explain when your older. Forget about it until you’re at least seventeen.’

‘Oh, okay.’ Crisis averted.

Sabo sighed. ‘You may as well come back with us, I get the feeling you don’t have anywhere to stay and Luffy seems pretty determined to have you on our crew. Keep him out of trouble for week and we’ll admit he made the right call.’

Ace didn’t say anything as Zoro got up and started walking in the wrong direction until Luffy, who was still stuck to his back like a baby monkey, tugged on his hair and pointed him to the correct path. He remembered Zoro, and while he didn’t have a _clue_ what had happened to make the other man remember enough to come to the island, it said something about him that he would come all this way just to follow his captain. Ace knew, really, that the man could be trusted, it just didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be cautious.

‘Well,’ Sabo said as the other two walked ahead of them, ‘it seems we have another bit of useless information to add to our puzzle about remembering the future.’

Ace just groaned.

**ASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZASLZ**

Dadan felt her eyebrow twitch. The three demon boys had long ago moved into their tree house but, like all children, enjoyed spending some of their nights in the bandit hut when something went wrong. The last time she had seen the three of them was after Garp had “accidently” sent Luffy flying up through the floor from below as a very inappropriate wake up call for the other two. Truthfully, they hadn’t _quite_ finished repairing the resulting hole yet, so she wasn’t that surprised to see the three of them casually sleeping in their own room.

No, her problem was the _extra_ brat that seemed to have made himself at home in her hide out.

Maybe she had just miss counted, _one, two, three, four_ , nope, definitely hadn’t miscounted. She didn’t think she had, but part of her had hoped that the green haired brat had just been the result of too much drinking the night before.

Multiple hits to the head had the boys awake, and they better have one hell of an explanation as to _why_ they had felt the need to add more to their number. Especially the two dark haired ones, she really needed to have talk to them about their habit of bringing home strays.


	10. ASLZ+Law

Dadan glared at the grinning Marine, she knew _now_ who to blame for the two brats adopting strays as it seemed to be genetic. Garp stood before her with an almost _crowd_ behind him, each person looking various degrees of uncomfortable and out of place.

‘Garp,’ she almost snarled, ‘just how many people do you intend to drop on me. The other two were problem enough, especially as they keep bring home brats of their own.’ Which he was more than well aware of after his last visit of throwing four small bodies around in a ravine.

The bastard just laughed. ‘Well, I did promise to drop them off here before I realized that Luffy needed more training, so it doesn’t really matter.’

Dadan just signed, having given up on fighting her increasing number of charges about a week after Zoro arrived. She just hoped this lot didn’t eat as much as three of the other four brats tended to, if so there was high chance that they would eat the Mountains out of game before another three years were out.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

Rocinante didn’t have a clue how to respond to this situation; he had spent a rather eventful two-year trip getting over the red line to east blue, and a further half year being dragged around by the insane Marine vice-admiral before him, and now stood before a rather run-down shack were said insane vice-admiral wanted to leave him, his son, and his son’s friends, to the tender mercies of a colorful group claiming to be bandits.

He should have known better than to trust someone like Garp.

Law, for his part, didn’t know how he felt. He was the one that said they could trust Garp, a man he hadn’t even met, based on a feeling in his gut that may or may not have been caused by a half-remembered dream. Instinct wasn’t something he normally put credit in, he preferred well thought out plans based on years of research, but that same feeling in his gut told him that he was going to have to change that, and soon, if he wanted to survive.

Looking back at the other three who had decided to tag along, Law remembered that he should have had more than enough practice during the two and a half years he and Rocinante had been traveling.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

“Eventful” was one way to describe the trip between the North Blue and East Blue, however the word itself left rather a lot lacking and was a bit of an understatement. A clumsy ex-marine trouping over half the world with no funds while dragging a traumatized child with him when neither of them could swim was going to be difficult no matter what, add in the need to avoid notice from not only said ex-marine’s previous employers that were a world-wide organisation, but also his insane brother who ran a rather extensive criminal organisation and things got exponentially harder.

Law did not consider himself a child, nor did he consider himself traumatized, however he couldn’t deny that he suffered from nightmares that left him sweating and terrified that Cora-san, now Rocinante, had to wake him up from.

They were always the same, yet completely different, as the ones he had had during his days of unconsciousness after eating that fruit. He would see his home burning and his parents perishing and witness over and over again Cora-san dying in the snow because he trusted someone that turned out to be a traitor. He would dream of just how easily things could have gone differently but these weren’t dreams, they were memories, and he wished that he couldn’t tell the difference. Things were familiar that shouldn’t be, but Law didn’t think that either of them had really considered just how wrong these dreams were until he started to get flashes during the day and referring to things that he shouldn’t, couldn’t, know about.

It was small things at first, using his devil fruit as if he had been practicing with it for years, knowing the exact treatment for a rare disease for which the cure should be unknown.

Then it moved on to larger things, important things like knowing who to trust, seeing a face and getting glimpses of their future. Sometimes he would just blink and it would be all over with nothing but a lingering confusion to show it had ever happened. Other times it was a bit bigger than that, passing out cold in Rocinante’s arms for no apparent reason and waking up spouting nonsense that ended up being a little truer that any of them wanted it to be.

He scared Rocinante, the poor man just wanted to look after him and make sure he was okay and safe and instead he kept collapsing, and it worried him to no end when that would happen. However, he knew he _terrified_ at least two of the tag-a-longs, people who were in fact a result of the very dreams they seemed to fear.

It was on one of the first few islands that they stopped on. Law spent the whole day frowning at their surroundings, getting hammered by the feeling of familiarity and the need to _do_ something, something specific. The need had only gotten worst and Rocinante was left to worry about how twitchy his son was getting.

Law’s sleep that night was restless, filled with those same dreams of half forgotten memories, but this time they all seemed set on the same island on which they were now sleeping. He dreamed about meeting people, people that would have become his family after he had lost his for the second time. People who would stick with him despite a questionable first impression.

The next morning he was even more twitchy than the day before, not long after breakfast he more or less begged to be allowed to go for a walk in an attempt to alleviate all the excess energy he seemed to have. Rocinante wasn’t too happy to let him out of his sight, but given Law was a teenager he had to admit that coddling probably wasn’t a good idea, no matter that the boy had been very sick up until recently.

Law was gone for no more than thirty minutes when he stumbled across the people from his dream. A polar bear mink cub was huddled on the ground as two human boys hurled abuse at him; Law would never claim to be a good citizen, by any stretch of the imagination, but he refused to be a bystander for bullying if he could help it.

Five seconds later and the two boys were in pieces on the ground, screaming out in shock and surprise as their eyes told them they had been beheaded and the rest of their body told them that they were still in one piece, thank you very much, and still quite capable of feeling and controlling their limbs.

Mores the pity when law casually stepped on some sensitive parts on his way over to the polar bear.

‘Hey, you okay?’ the Cub looked up at him with wide, terrified, eyes. The person before him had saved him from a possible beating, but he seemed to have killed his tormentors when the bear wasn’t really sure they deserved it.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ the boy seemed to have read his mind, ‘they just have to put themselves back together, rather like a jigsaw puzzle, and they’ll be fine.’ As if to demonstrate that the dismemberment hadn’t done any permanent damage the boy casually stepped on a hand that had been twitching on the ground, the sudden howl of pain seemed to indicate that whatever was going on, his tormentors could at least still feel their extremities.

Didn’t stop the polar bear from insisting that they helped with the reassembling. It took a surprisingly long time.

The two of them talked while they worked, ignoring their two other groaning companions, swapping introductions and stories and generally building up a rather good friendship. Bepo, the surprisingly polite polar bear, found himself getting attached to the rather sadistic teenager that had come to his rescue. He wouldn’t deny being pleased when the other boy, Law, asked if he would like to travel with him while the two of them worked to get strong enough to take on the grand line.

Eventually the two of them had the other two boys back in one piece with all the pieces in the correct place. The two bullies had spent the last hour or so not saying much, only groaning when Law decided to be a little rough with the individual limbs he was handling. Now that they were together again they were giving each other, and the duo in front of them, considering looks.

Suddenly they bowed.

‘We sincerely apologies for our behavior, and humbly request that you take us on as your apprentices,’ they said in complete synchronization. ‘I’m Shachi, and he’s Penguin,’ the one with the green hat continued.

Law raised an eyebrow. ‘And why would the two people whose ass I just kicked want to follow me?’ he said, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

‘Because your strong,’ Penguin said, ‘and we respect that. It also means you can beat up the people who are stronger than us.’

Law gave them another long look, before shrugging. ‘I’ll have to ask, but it should be okay, as long as you don’t mind being enemies of the world government and Doflamingo.’

All three of the new comers looked at each other before nodding, Law suspected they thought he was joking.

And that was how the four of them ended up running into a panicking Rocinante, who had surpassed worried after the first hour in which Law had failed to return.

The five of them had traveled almost smoothly after that, Rocinante’s clumsiness got them into a few tight spots and constantly being hunted meant that nothing ever went truly smoothly. It was after almost a month of traveling together that they had had their first of three run ins with Doflamingo and Bepo, Shachi and Penguin learned that no, Law had not been joking or exaggerating. Of course, by then it was to late to back out and the three of them now had to make their peace with their new life of adventure.

Rocinante still didn’t, and didn’t think he wanted to ever, know where Law had found the cursed sword. Law quietly agreed with him, and wished he could share in his father’s ignorance.

Neither of the original ex-pirates had remembered to tell the three other teenagers who it was they were traveling to meet with in order to go into hiding, and they definitely hadn’t thought the three of them would freak out quite that much. It was only after they had crossed the red line and met up with Garp that the two of them realised that they hadn’t really told the rest of Law’s “crew” just how they had ended up drifting around the north blue.

Quite frankly the five of them would have taken running and hiding from the Marine’s and Doflamingo for the rest of their lives any day over having to spend time on the insane ship captained by Garp. Rocinante had never been so thankful that his own adopted father had kept him as far out of the madman’s grasp as possible during his marine training than he was in the first hour after having set sail with the man.

Law felt incredibly sorry for the man’s trainees, and any sons or grandsons the man may have somehow managed to spawn.

He ignored the feeling in his gut that told him that, yes, this man did have a few family members and, yes, he should feel sorry for them and take this idiots actions as a warning for how they may behave.

He also had a feeling that Garp’s behaviour somehow explained the revolutionary that was in the process of gaining fame, but he studiously ignored that one.

And so after six months of insanity, here the five of them were, standing outside a bandit hut and hoping like hell that the man would at least be reliable in hiding them. The five of them were also wondering about the “brats that bring home other brats” that the lead bandit, who seemed to be a woman, had mentioned. Rocinante thought, hoped, she may have been joking in order to prove a point. Bepo, Shachi and Penguin were all firmly in the same boat as Rocinante.

Law suspected that she was being serious, and that said “brats” were going to be interesting, but something sounded wrong about the numbers she had mentioned, he didn’t know why …

It was soon after that the four children who all looked younger than him turned up.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

The four boys trooped back to the Bandits hut with the catch of the day, two large bears and a buffalo that would hopefully get them and the bandits through the next meal without difficulty and maybe half way through the next as well. All four were getting stronger as the months passed by and Zoro had fit straight back into his place next to Luffy with no difficulty whatsoever.

They paused at the sight that greeted them now as they saw about five people standing outside the Bandits hut, and couple of bags of luggage suggesting they were intending on moving in.

‘Wasn’t us! This is _not_ our fault, we didn’t do it, you can’t prove _anything_.’ A few of the bandits weren’t sure what was sadder, the fact that that was the boys’ response to seeing more people joining the gang of bandits or that all four of them had managed the whole sentence in complete synchronization.

‘We know,’ Dadan growled out, ‘this one is Garp’s fault, apparently we run a safe house for those that are running from the marines as well as a day care.’

The two oldest boys looked at each other, shrugged, and turned around and to and get more game for the meal and hopefully use the time unsupervised to discuss this latest development in the “what the hell happened to the time line” disaster that they had not so secretly brought Zoro up to date on when it became obvious that he remembered at least some of what was going to happen.

Luffy, however, did not move with them. Instead he was staring with starry eyes at the group of new comers.

‘Hey, Gramps brought them, so it’s not our fault, but I can still keep the polar bear, right?’

The bandits almost all lost strength and fell over, the group of new comers had their mouths fall open in shock, and the three oldest boys just grabbed Luffy by the arm and started dragging him into the jungle.

Sabo and Zoro, as they helped drag the struggling eight-year-old away from the commotion, were both thinking that one of those people looked strangely familiar, and way too knowing. After all, the one with the overly fuzzy hat had just smiled in rather creepy manner rather than react with the same amount of shock as the rest of his group.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**


	11. Family Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know Penguin or Shachi that well so they may be out of character.

The group of eight children and teenagers, with one adult, looked at each other as they sat in their assigned room in the Bandit Den and ate dinner. Dadan had decided that, as these were not actual bandits and were instead just more people dropped off by Garp, that the four demon children could have the joy of explaining the rules to the new arrivals.

Dadan’s other reason for this was that she had a feeling that these people would have about as much to do with her as previously mentioned demon children.

Currently, however, said information seemed to be rather un-forthcoming. The two oldest of the bandit kids were alternating staring at each other and glaring at everyone else as if they were trying to solve a complex puzzle and they were all new pieces to be placed. The youngest by far was happily munching on meat and the second youngest was sitting next to him and making sure he didn’t choke.

Eventually the other two seemed to come to some agreement, and the blond one of the two turned to the rest of them.

‘Good evening, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Sabo, the dark-haired boy next to me is my older brother Ace, and the straw hat kid behind me is my younger brother Luffy. The green haired boy next to Luffy is his first mate when we eventually set out to sea.’ His introduction finished, the now named Sabo sat back expectantly.

As the semi responsible party, the adult handled introductions for the new comers.

‘My name is Rocinante, but some people call me Cora-san. This is my son, Law,’ he placed his hand on the tall, thin, teenager next to him, ‘and his friends Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin. Bepo is the polar bear mink, Penguin has his name on his hat, and Shachi is the other one.’ Shachi looked rather disgruntled with his introduction but didn’t protest it.

‘Right,’ Ace chimed in after a second, ‘it’s a pleasure to meet you, now kindly tell us which one of you is capable of remembering the future.’

Four of the five new comers spat out the meat they had been eating in shock, Rocinante lit himself on fire by accident and Law wacked himself on the forehead before putting him out.

‘Wh-wh-what?’ Shachi finally managed to stutter out as he wiped spit and bits of meat off his chin. Ace and Sabo raised their eyebrows at the boy’s inability to lie about or cover up what they were claiming.

‘Let me rephrase that then,’ Sabo said calmly, ‘Which of you lot suggest getting Garp to hide you, because we know that one of you must have.’

‘Fairly sure it’s not Rocinante,’ Ace chimed in. ‘Probably his son, I don’t think that Rocinante survived last time.’

‘Creepy Doctor,’ Sabo replied, the statement must have made sense to someone in the room because none of the others who had lived there made any protests, Zoro even nodded.

There was silence as four of the occupants tried to figure out if all of the people they were supposed to be living with were insane, and four of the other occupants waited patiently for a response to the original question.

And then Law laughed, long and hard as the eight other people now stared at him as if questioning his sanity. It took a while for him to calm down enough to answer, but a few could already guess what he was going to say.

‘Yes, I was the one that suggested that Garp would be able to hide us from a few people by whom I really don’t want to be found. I get … feelings? About certain people that let me know if I should trust them or not, or if there is something I should avoid doing at all costs, is that what you were asking about when you mentioned remembering the future?’

His father and friends were now looking at Law as if he were crazy, probably wondering why he would reveal such delicate information. But law didn’t look at them, he didn’t break eye contact with the two people who were interrogating him.

Sabo gave a huge sigh and sat back slightly, Ace just folded his arms and glared at the room in general. ‘So, you’re like Zoro then, I’m not sure whether to be glad or not,’ Sabo muttered to himself.

‘Zoro?’ Penguin couldn’t keep his silence any longer.

Sabo gave him a look that was almost as bad as Ace’s, before answering the question. ‘Zoro is on this island because he was led here by something similar, except he also has infallible Luffy Radar and experiences the occasional dream to accompany the nostalgia and occasional flash back, or is it flash forward?’ Sabo finished in genuine confusion.

Everyone else in the room blinked at him, none of them knew either.

‘So … this has happened before then? It’s, what, normal?’ Law said, sounding more than slightly disbelieving, but not quite managing to hide the hope in his voice from a select few in the room.

Ace snorted. ‘It’s not _normal,_ not by a long shot, but it’s not as uncommon as it should be, or as I wish it was,’ several people gave him a look, so he elaborated. ‘The more people like there are the more chance of someone else we have never met stuffing something up and us loosing our advantage of forewarning.’

Silence descended for several seconds, but Law suddenly had a too knowing look in his eye that all of the demon brats recognised as the look of someone smart who has just figured out something you really wish they hadn’t.

Of course, none of them were that subtle, except occasionally Sabo, so it wasn’t surprising that the look was so familiar.

‘Zoro is not the only one, is he?’ the fur-hatted teenager asked.

‘Zoro is the closest to what you just described,’ Sabo responded, almost too quickly.

‘But he’s not the only one to _remember_ , is he?’ Law clarified. ‘You two do as well, don’t you? Or, at least, you have some kind of experience with this as well, don’t you?’ Ace wanted nothing more than to wipe that self-satisfied look off the other boy’s face.

Sabo sighed, Ace’s emotions were too easy to read, and decided that delay was the best tactic in this scenario. ‘This is one of those things that should probably be discussed at a later time and in a semblance of privacy. It is also, as you have probably guessed, a story that is much too long to be discussed over dinner, especially when we are actually meant to be talking about something else, mainly your new living conditions.

‘As you can see, you now live with bandits, as per the orders an insane old geezer called Garp, who just happens to be my adopted grandfather. While living with the bandits they will expect you to do all of the chores, help with the usual bandit activities, and hunt for your own food if you want more than a single bowl of rice to eat.

‘We, as in us four, do not technically live with the bandits, though Dadan does for some inexplicable reason consider at least Ace, Luffy and I her sort of surrogate sons and hold some weird type of affection for us.

‘As we do not actually live with the bandits, and you somehow seem to have pissed off the world Government which is always a plus, you do have the option of staying with us instead.

‘If you decided to stay with us then you will still need to help bring in meat and most likely partake in a little steeling and violence, but anyone who says our victims are innocent is kidding themselves. The main difference is that we will expect you to train with us and help us get stronger, and that we have a one-week probation period to prove whether your actually worth keep around and trusting.

‘The four of us also intend to be pirates when we’re older, though that is neither here nor there, but if you are living with us it will mean we have to find out a new way to divide up treasure.’

His speech done, Sabo started digging into his food that had remained relatively untouched during the tense beginning of the night, and did his best to ignore everyone else. Soon the four boys who had lived on the island longest had finished their rather impressive meal and let themselves out. Ace gave the parting comment that they now knew the rules, but they could change their mind about who they lived with whenever they liked.

The next morning, after a very poor night’s sleep surrounded by unfamiliar snoring, Law decided to give at least two of his so-called “friends” a warning of his own.

‘Don’t mess with the youngest.’ Both Penguin and Shachi gave him a look but Law was unrelenting. ‘I met you because you decided that it was okay to pick on people that were weaker than you were, and it is not an attitude that has changed, but that kid is off limits if you know what is good for you.’

‘Got a soft spot for him already, Captain? Or do you “remember” him or however they put it?’ Penguin piped up.

And for some reason Law _smirked_. ‘I remember meeting a couple of brothers last night that I think are quite capable of, and more importantly _willing_ to, make your life a living hell if they think that you’re causing their little brother any trouble, regardless of how I may feel or how strong said little brother may turn out to be.’

Penguin and Shachi looked at each other, and then shrugged; Law got the distinct feeling that they hadn’t really taken much notice of what he had just said. They may recognise Law as stronger and call him Captain in respect to his place above them in his future crew, but they were still older than any of the other kids currently in hiding with the bandits and it occasionally showed when they pulled stunts like this. They just didn’t believe that it was possible for children they considered so “young” to be able to beat them in a fair fight, especially when they themselves weren’t intending on fighting fair.

Law made up his mind then and there that he would not be rescuing them from whatever Ace and Sabo put them through, in fact, he might even give the two brothers a heads up and call it a learning experience for the two bullies, as apparently their experiences while travelling hadn’t been enough. 

He might not remember, but he didn’t need to, he had been an older sibling once before, even if he wasn’t any longer, he knew how they acted and felt and just remembering what he had lost made him feel like someone had used his power and was crushing his heart.

No, he would not be saving the two bullies, responsibilities of being captain be damned. Besides, he had a suspicion that in a few years that title might end up belonging to someone else.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

Ace was not impressed. Actually, that was an understatement, Ace was down right pissed, and the reason for his fowl mood was the two brats that had decided that Luffy was fair game to pick on. While most of the people who gramps had dropped off appeared older than him and Sabo, with the possible exception of the Polar Bear as he really didn’t know much about their ages, both were fairly sure that none of them were older than their real age of thirty, other than the ex-marine.

So, Ace was incredible annoyed at these teenagers who seemed to think they had the right to pick on _his_ little brother without consequences, and even more upset because, currently, they were right. Because of _course_ Luffy himself had to say something.

Once they had gotten back to the tree house and away from prying eyes and listening ears the four boys had discussed this new divergence from the original time line. They had, in the last six months, finally brought Luffy up to date on there little being reborn problem and time traveling shenanigans, mostly because as the first mate Zoro refused to keep anything from his captain.

Of course, even after asking out right, they still didn’t have a clue whether Luffy remembered or not, and didn’t think they were ever going to.

But that wasn’t what was bothering Ace at the moment. No, right now he was annoyed at Luffy’s total dismissal of the need to discuss anything, and his final statement that had rung more like a Captain’s order.

‘Dose it matter?’ Luffy piped up when Sabo had finally stopped ranting about smart, creepy, doctor, pirates and brothers with the subtlety of a rampaging bear. ‘Law’s going to be family, Gramps said so, so we just accept him and his friends the way they are, right?’

Sabo and Ace groaned, Zoro just smirked. Luffy was, and probably always would be, too good and too trusting to survive in the world without them, and Ace and Sabo honestly had no idea how he had lasted so long the first time. It didn’t matter how many times they tried to explain the real world to him, or how many times they ran into people like Blue Jam, Luffy would always trust someone until proven guilty, and sometimes he wouldn’t accept them as bad guys even then.

What was never said, but damn was it often thought about long into the early hours of the morning, was that all too often those people Luffy refused to give up on did end up holding a spark of kindness that the kid always managed to draw out. And that those very few times when Luffy would find something about a person that pissed him off within the first few minutes of meeting them, often for no good reason, then that person would almost _always_ end up turning out to be rotten to the core.

Ace and Sabo didn’t repeat an argument that they had had many times before, they didn’t try and tell Luffy for the hundredth time that just because a person was themselves meant that who they were _good_. They didn’t even point out that Garp had never actually said anything about Law becoming their family, instead they just gave Luffy _the Look_ , the one that said please think about this.

And Luffy just gave his own look right back, the one that said that he was Captain and he had come to a decision and there was nothing that anyone could do about it.

Sabo and Ace really hated that look, Zoro just accepted it and thought that, in his opinion, the two older brothers should get used to it. All of them had agreed to follow the bouncing ball of sunshine, and occasionally that meant following orders that weren’t always smart or even made sense. Because they were still on the island the two oldest were still allowed to have some say, mostly because Luffy was still considered too young to really lead them yet, but all too soon they would have to hand over even their limited attempts at control, and Zoro thought that they should probably learn to let loose slightly _now,_ before it became impossible and they were driven to less acceptable methods of dealing with having to follow orders from their little brother.

But currently that wasn’t the point. Currently the three brothers were discussing what to do with the rival Captain (was he a rival? Zoro suddenly felt that wasn’t quite right) who had fallen into the same confused boat as the rest of them and moved into their home. The discussion was loud and long until Luffy finally put a stop to it, by making a request that sounded more like an order than any nearly nine-year-old had any right making.

‘Ace, Sabo, just don’t do anything to them unless I find out something that makes them really, _really_ , evil. Ace isn’t allowed to almost kill future family members, and Sabo isn’t supposed to threaten friends. You can’t do something to them while I like them, but I’ll let you know when that changes.’

And that was the end of that, and the reason why all three of them were watching the two “oldest” children of the bandits make nasty comments to Luffy with twitching limbs and tight grips on weapons while Luffy remained oblivious. What was even more annoying was that Law had actually warned them about those two and given free reign once they had Luffy’s permission, giving Luffy’s opinion more weight than anyone was comfortable with.

This was not going to end well, and all three of them might hate it, but Ace knew that Zoro would ensure they followed Luffy, and it was always worth it when all was said and done.


	12. Family Part Two

Zoro looked over at Luffy’s brothers as all three of them watched silently while two of the new comers continued to harass Luffy, and silently congratulated their self-control. Despite how young they all were, despite how mature Ace and Sabo could be, and regardless of the fact that they had not yet set out to sea, Zoro really did take his role as first mate quite seriously, and he would ensure that _all_ members of the crew followed their Captains orders, regardless of any family status they might have.

Sometimes this role was all he could hold onto when the world seemed determined to pitch and role like stormy waves beneath his feet.

Some things Zoro just _knew_ , and had for as long as could remember, and had let his feelings guide that knowledge for the same amount of time, like when he saved his sister and then left to find what was on the other end of a connection he didn’t understand. He was different to the two brothers (he didn’t know about Law) in that his actually _memory_ wasn’t much clearer than the occasional dream, but his ability to _know_ was all he really needed so he didn’t much care. It helped that the longer he was around Luffy the more he _understood,_ and the clearer what he did know _was._

Like he knew that Luffy could handle himself against these teenagers that thought they were so strong but were really pathetically weak. Like he knew that Luffy had a strange code of honour and his own understanding that meant that he could be viewed as a coward or stupid and yet retain all of his dignity. Like he _knew_ that Luffy’s order the night before had had more to do with his brothers than it had had to do with the five people Garp had dropped off.

Zoro lived in a world were North and South traded places at the drop of a hat whenever he was trying to get somewhere. He had had to get used to knowing things he had no right knowing, contradicted what everything else was telling him, and didn’t make sense. He was part of a crew where the captain was, and would likely always be, one of the youngest members and had inherited his grandfather’s sanity, or lack thereof. He knew that their world was divided by two lines that had never heard of logic and had murdered common sense, and that at least one of those lines was their destination and where he had every intension of spending the rest of his life.

Zoro lived in a world that he knew would insist on trying to destroy any ground he found to stand on, and change the location of any place he wanted to go. And Zoro knew that the only way to keep his balance was to hold on tight to his position next to the only guiding light he would ever be able to trust while he let go of absolutely everything else rational to be swept away by the wave of chaos that said light seemed to bring.

And so, Zoro would make sure that all of his captain’s orders were followed, by brother or crew mate alike, no matter how insane, or their current location. And that was why he gripped his sword tighter with wary eyes as Ace and Sabo lost their battle with self-restraint and started stalking closer to their prey that hadn’t even realised just how fucked it was yet.

After all, he would step in only when Ace was in danger of harming future family members, or Sabo looked like he was going to deal out very thinly veiled threats to friends. He didn’t need to act as if he didn’t trust them as they walked over to their little brother, who they might have a legitimate reason for talking to, by attacking first without proof.

And if those disrespectful little bastards were to get the fright of their lives when Ace acted aggressively, or Zoro was forced to violently intervene, well, that would just serve them right.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

Penguin and Shachi laughed at the stupid little kid after making another comment about his intelligence, not at all deterred by his lack of reaction. They did startle slightly as two of the other boys from the night before seemed to materialise from the jungle around them, but tried to make sure that it wasn’t too obvious.

‘Making friends, Luffy?’ the one that had been introduced as Ace asked, the worlds and tone casual but with a glint in his eyes that made the two bullies suddenly second guess their intensions towards the other.

Unfortunately, neither had ever really been the smartest of the lot, despite what they had just been saying to the eight-year-old kid, otherwise they would have been hastily apologising and running for cover as fast as their legs could carry them.

Luffy, on the other hand, ignored the growing tension rolling off his brothers and shrugged. ‘They keep laughing even though nothing they say is that funny, I don’t think they’re that smart,’ the kid said.

Penguin started spluttering, ‘you really can’t talk.’ Luffy just tilted his head at his words.

‘He’s insulting you, Luffy, that’s also why they were laughing,’ the blond said. A shiver ran up their spine but, again, they refused to take the hint.

‘Oh,’ Luffy said in a calm voice, nodding his head but other wise not doing anything. ‘Hey, is it time for lunch?’

Shachi scoffed, ‘what, too much of a coward to do anything so you’re just going to walk away?’

Luffy then looked at them with surprisingly blank eyes, though blank didn’t seem to be quite the right word…

‘The last time I over reacted just because someone said something I didn’t like, someone else ended up getting their arm eaten, I know better now,’ Luffy said.

Everyone else in the clearing just stood their speechless. Ace and Sabo were connecting the dots with what little they did know about Shank’s missing arm, and also realising just how much they didn’t know about their little brother despite all the years they had known him. Penguin and Shachi were confused and fighting hard against just about every instinct they had as said instincts screamed at them to get the hell away, _now_.

Instead they ignored at least half that sentence as coincidence, or exaggeration, and changed tactic on how to get the brat to _react_ , preferable break at the idea of his own weakness.

‘Well,’ Penguin said as inspiration struck him, ‘if you’re not going to react it’s boring, I guess we’ll just go beat up that green haired freak instead for entertainment.’

They didn’t actually see any fist flying towards them, they just remembered the supposedly weak “kid” shifting as his eyes went dark before a whole lot pain hit them almost instantaneously. Penguin thought he saw the kid’s arm stretch, but that might have been a pain induced hallucination, before it was lights out for both of them.

They woke some time later to Law’s scowling face above them. ‘I am doctor in training, but I do not need the practice of setting bones. Please refrain from upsetting our hosts enough that they feel the need to give me more work.’

His two patients just groaned in response.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

Rocinante sent a half-hearted glare at the soup he was attempting to make. It wasn’t that he was a bad cook, he would even go so far as to call himself rather decent, however those around him didn’t always seem to agree. In this case, the odds for a successful meal were stacked against him, due to the lack of usable food that seemed to be available.

They had been living with the bandits and the rather strange children for a few days now, and he wasn’t any closer to understanding them. They had claimed that one of them was like Law, they behaved like the children they were, and then turned around and showed a maturity that even some of the experienced marines didn’t have. The youngest acted so naive and friendly, but Shachi and Penguin were still recovering from their run in with him, though Rocinante was currently under the impression that they had done something do deserve their woeful state. That impression was helped by Law’s refusal to give them anything strong for the pain, or fix their broken bones instantly with his fruit. Bepo had decided to try and stay as far away from everyone, other than Law, as he possibly could, and spent most of his time playing nurse to their two injured traveling companions, and the occasional bandit.

‘That looks really yummy!’ the sudden voice of the very person he was thinking about sounding so close to his elbow startled him, and triggered what Law would consider the expected sequence of events.

Rocinante jumped, as he went up he managed to hit the pot he was currently using to cook his soup and some how managed to get the majority of the scalding food all over his bare skin. As he jumped around and howled in pain from his burns, he failed to notice his clothes trailing in the fire he had been cooking over, effectively catching himself alight. The fire went out, however, when he tripped on the burning material and went tumbling to the ground, managing to land on the only sloping bit of floor and rolling for several seconds before he came to stop, by which stage the flames had been smothered.

Looking back on every other time he had tried to make a meal for Law, it was probably his clumsiness and accident-prone nature that made the teenager so reluctant to let him do so, rather than any form of reflection on his talent in the kitchen.

When the world finally stopped spinning, he became aware of strange sound above the noise of the crackling flames, and looked up to see the little brat laughing his head off at his predicament.

‘Mister sure is funny, but you ruined all the food!’ the kid said, his smile turning into a pout before Rocinante’s eyes. Part of Rocinante wanted to protest both the kid’s statement that he was funny and his insinuation that the food was for him, but instincts honed from years in the service of the Marines as a spy and the memory of the two other boys with broken bones had him hesitating and deciding to proceed with caution.

‘Yeah, I guess I did. My names Rocinante, and I believe your brother’s said your name was Luffy, right?’

‘Yep! Nice to meet you, Rocinat … Rociat … Rocky!’ Rocinante had to fight to keep himself upright as Luffy butchered his name, he couldn’t afford any more bruises.

‘If you can’t say it, feel free to call me Cora-san, like Law does,’ Rocinante said.

‘Okay, Cora!’ it was about then that Rocinante gave up, he really could not win against the child.

Especially when he was aiming such a bright smile at him.

‘Hey, hey, Cora, are you strong?’ the question caught him off guard, and the child continued talking after his brief hesitation. ‘It’s just, people were talking about how you and Law can’t swim, and Law has a Devil fruit so that’s why he can’t, and Law said you saved his life which means you should be strong! But if your strong and can’t swim, does that mean you have a Devil Fruit? Or are you just bad at learning? My brothers say that I’m bad a learning, unless there’s meat involved. I want meat! You reckon we’ll get meat for dinner? I’m starving!’ Luffy continued to rattle on, much to Rocinante’s confusion as the child’s spiralling thought process continued. When, and why, on earth had he started talking about food?

‘I do have a Devil Fruit,’ Rocinante eventually interrupted, stopping the child in his tracks, ‘but it’s not a very strong one, some people even call it rather pathetic, so I usually rely on other means in order to appear “strong” and protect the things I care about,’ he explained.

And suddenly that smile was gone, and Rocinante found himself under stare that seemed to look into his very soul and judge him beyond what any other being, with the possible exception of God, could possibly hope to accomplish.

‘What fruit?’ Luffy asked, his normal hyper energy temporarily absent.

‘The Calm-Calm fruit,’ Rocinante said, a little disturbed. ‘It allows me to create a bubble of silence and maintain it, as well as decide in which way sound, if any, can go in or out the bubble I create. Not a lot of use in a fight.’

Luffy continued to look, _stare_ , are him for a while before speaking. ‘I ate the Gum-Gum Fruit,’ he suddenly said, shocking Rocinante as he stretched his cheek, ‘and gramps said the same thing, but I decided it’s useful, and I’ve used it to save Ace and Sabo in a fight lots of times. So, it’s not about what fruit you get, it’s about how you use it.’

Suddenly the kid was smiling and, after sailing with Garp for any length time, Rocinante had learned to fear that smile.

‘And that means training! I’ll help you,’ Luffy said, before dragging Rocinante out the door before the poor man could protest.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

‘I can’t find Cora-san,’ Law said instead of any form of greeting when he joined the other three people he suspected (knew) to be in the same predicament as him.

Over the last few days, the boys had come to an understanding regarding their new living arrangements. Law had earned several points from them when he had stated that his traveling companions got what they deserved if they picked on Luffy, and several more when he revealed his powers and that they could be useful for keeping said younger brother safe and healthy. The three of them now considered him, if not a tentative friend, then at least a person that was willing and able to help them with their trouble magnet, and someone they could respect.

Law, for his part, had given up arguing between his instincts and common sense, and just decided to give in and trust these strangers, despite serval bits of evidence that should have meant the contrary. There was something about them, something that seemed to comfort him and make him feel safe, despite the fact that their so called “weakest” brother had broken several of his friends’ bones and made it so that they wouldn’t be leaving the bandits hut any time soon.

But, currently, he had bigger things to worry about than their rather unconventional relationship that had sprung up over only a matter of days.

‘He’s not at the bandit hut, where I know I left him with orders to not do anything without supervision, and there is a mess in the kitchen where he seems to have tried to cook, including what seems to be the remains of a burned cape. However, that’s not what’s wrong, what’s wrong is that there are child sized foot prints in the dust around where he was, and I can’t find Luffy either.’

The Ace and Sabo looked at each other, and then stared questioningly at Zoro, who obligingly seemed to concentrate for a while before pointing off in some random direction.

‘That’s … not the direction of the bandit hut,’ Ace said, pointing out what his brother was thinking.

‘No, no it’s not, and that means that our trouble magnet of a brother has wondered off from where we left him, despite bribing him with meat not too,’ Sabo replied.

‘Meaning he is, most likely, somewhere out in the middle of the jungle with an adult of questionable responsibility, who is also a trouble magnet, and has the habit of setting himself on fire or falling into any available body of water, simply because he is clumsy and accident prone,’ Law commented.

‘So, the two worst people possible are out on Mount Colubo, by themselves, getting into all sorts of trouble, and have been for who knows how long,’ Zoro said, summarising what everyone was already thinking.

The four them looked at each other, and then took off at a run into the jungle themselves in the direction in which Zoro had pointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at writing scenes, or chapters, with lots of characters, I lose track of them all, hence why Bepo isn’t in a lot of scenes so far.


	13. Family Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preciously: ‘So, the two worst people possible are out on Mount Colubo, by themselves, getting into all sorts of trouble, and have been for who knows how long,’ Zoro said, summarising what everyone was already thinking. 
> 
> The four them looked at each other, and then took off at a run into the jungle themselves in the direction in which Zoro had pointed.

Rocinante rolled away from the very angry, very _large_ , tiger with the giggling brat clutched to his chest, wondering how on earth he had gotten himself into this mess.

Actually, there wasn’t much to wonder about. The giggling brat had dragged from the bandit hut where he was cooking lunch, and when he had tried to resist, he had tripped and caused the two of them to go tumbling down the side of a steep ravine. When they finally landed, it was unfortunately in the middle of a group of large bears that had taken offence at the interruption and chased them for a good twenty minutes through the forest until the bears had suddenly given up turned around, very abruptly. Rocinante should have taken that as a warning, but was a little too lost and confused to do so and had instead taken to dragging the rubber kid in a direction he was hoping lead to home.

Whether or not it would have led them there remained to be seen, he tripped once again only this time he rolled into a cave, and crashed at speed into what was the largest tiger he had ever seen, the same tiger he was now rolling to avoid.

So, everything thing was the kid, Luffy’s, fault, but he couldn’t worry about that now because it was a _kid_ and they had bigger things to be concerned about.

Like the boulder he now had his back to that was preventing any sort of retreat at the Tiger Lord lifted its giant claw to finish off it’s enemy.

This was it, they were going to die.

His heart started to beat at several times faster than it ever had before as he felt Luffy struggle against his chest. The world around him simultaneously blurred and sharpened as he became hyper aware of everything around them, he could even hear what he assumed to be Luffy’s brothers racing towards them to save them, but he knew they would be too late.

Something in his chest constricted and expanded, the same feeling he had just before using his devil fruit for the first time. Instinct guided him like it had the first time as, almost unthinkingly, he created a sound barrier around the beast heart.

And the tiger fell down dead as Luffy burst out laughing. The group of four children, including his own son, finally entered the clearing and closed their eyes in defeat as they failed to comprehend the sight of the dead animal and a laughing Luffy, with a shell shocked Rocinante mixed up with it.

‘See? They’re strong! Now they have to become our family!’ no one had the energy to try and argue with the trouble making ball of sunshine.

**REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING**

As they were (would be, had been, whatever) pirates, they celebrated the addition of their new family, their Nakama, in true pirating style. The bon-fire was something to be impressed by (both Ace and Sabo refused to respond to the comments about the two of them being pyromaniacs) and they had somehow managed to find enough food (and prepare it properly) to feed them all at their improvised banquet. Laughter, singing and shouting rang around the clearing, the same clearing the three brothers had stayed in during those days after they had finally been reunited. People were dancing and running around, and it was truly a chaotic mess worthy of the original Straw Hat pirates after some of the bandits had decided to join them, Dadan pretending that she wasn’t keeping a close eye on those she refused to admit as being her sons to ensure they didn’t wonder off and get into trouble.

Rocinante watched the chaos with fond amusement, especially has he had been ordered by Law to “sit there and don’t move” on account him having already caused enough trouble for one day. Law himself was over seeing his two patience with an almost vengeful ferocity, leaving the two teenagers to lie back in fear as Law glared at them as they ate. Rocinante wondered if they were regretting talking the others into letting them attend the party and were wishing they were back inside the bandit hut.

Ace and Sabo had tried to do something similar to Luffy as Law had done to him, keep the child in the same place for more than five minutes, but it had failed rather miserably if the energetic, human shaped, rubber ball rocketing around the clearing was anything to go by. Said rubber ball occasionally stopped to sing something loudly and off tune, before setting off again with a laugh. Ace and Sabo didn’t seem to have given up, however, as they continuously dashed past mere seconds afterwards.

Zoro was calmly trying to build up his alcohol tolerance, much to Rocinante’s disapproval, while leaning against Bepo on account of him being “comfortable” and “needing to join in more” while trying to drag said Polar bear cub into a discussion about … something Rocinante was probably glad he couldn’t hear the details of.

The party continued until well into the night. Luffy eventually settled down against Bepo with Zoro and fell asleep, almost everyone else having already done so in various locations and positions around the remains of the fire. Eventually, just Law, Sabo, and himself remained awake, the other two coming over to sit next to him, bringing more sake with them though this time Rocinante didn’t have the heart to tell them off, especially when they passed most of it over to him.

‘Is this really okay? To consider Law and I your family, Sabo, on nothing more than the word of a child?’ Rocinante asked, the question hadn’t left his mind after Luffy’s declaration in the middle of the wood even through all the preparations. ‘You know nothing about us, you don’t know our history, our enemies or even our last names, we could be deceiving you and trying to win you trust just for something like this.’

Rocinante had expected anything from laughter to admitted concern, not the response that he got.

‘Rocinante Doflamingo, exiled Celestial Dragon and brother to the pirate Doflamingo that is currently wreaking havoc in west blue. Former Marine agent, specialising in espionage and intelligence gathering, currently on the run after steeling Marine property in order to save the life of Trafalgar Water D. Law, despite it putting you on questionable terms with the man you see as a father figure, the Marine Sengoku also referred to as the Golden Buddha, did I leave anything out?’

Law burst out laughing at the look on his face, Sabo just smirked. ‘Law told you, didn’t he, he and Zoro aren’t the only ones with knowledge of the future, mine, and Ace’s, just happen to be a little more … complete than theirs.

‘Besides, we would be celebrating anyway, even if Luffy didn’t announce you as family. Garp dropped you off, you have proven yourself to be rather friendly, and we always celebrate our family’s achievements. Or did you forget the incident that provoked that statement in the first place?’

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. While the others had been setting up the bon fire he had been “asked” to practice with his new still and find out the limits of what he had just done.

He had awoken his devil fruit.

The calm-calm fruit allowed the user to create an area where sound couldn’t enter or leave, practice allowed manipulation to the point of allowing sound to go one way and not he other and gave better control over the area that one wanted isolated. This worked because the area was isolated by a barrier that prevented the vibrations responsible form sound from moving and stopped them all together.

Like all fruits, Awakening allowed for the transfer of the ability the greater affect the physical aspects of the world. Some examples where fruits that allowed for control over an element to convert buildings or the ground itself into that element.

And of all people, it had been Luffy who made him realised what he had done and what he was now capable of.

His barriers stopped vibrations, or “movement”, by directing that at an object instead of his barrier, he could cease its moment. During the fight with the tiger, he had directed it at its heart, thereby stopping the “movement” of its heart and killing it instantly.

Frighteningly enough, his barriers could now vibrate themselves, rather than just stopping them, and he had found that out when he made a tree tear itself apart and reduced it into splinters and the vibrating wood couldn’t maintain its shape.

His fruit that was only useful as a good night’s sleep had just evolved into a truly terrifying weapon, and as bandits and aspiring pirates, he could understand why that might be something they would want to celebrate.

But all of that was beside the point.

‘You just listed off the fact that I was a spy for the Marines, and yet you still don’t seem concerned about the fact that your brother considers us family, you also stated that I was forma Celestial Dragon, someone that could be considered you enemy given you life with bandits and that even traveling I heard what happened to this area when one of them was about to visit. You also pointed out that I more or less already betrayed by brother, my family, once before. How on earth can you be so willing to trust me?’

‘Baka,’ Law said beside him, ‘You can’t help who you are related to. Family is something you choose, not something you are born to. You make your family, and a family you make is not one cast away as easily as one based on shared parents or blood.

‘Besides, I have a “feeling” that these kids aren’t ones that can judge based on where you come from, right, Sabo?’ Law’s smile was practically predatory.

And Sabo just laughed. ‘Right. That fire you mentioned, Cora-San? It was set by my father, and when he found a corps in the ashes that could have been me, he ordered it disposed off so that it couldn’t bring any scandals towards his name.’ Sabo laughed at the look on his face. ‘That’s right, I’m the son of a Nobel, ran away to a trash heap because I decided it stank less than that horrendous inner city at five years old. I also have, and will again, killed to protect the family I have now. Though don’t tell Luffy I told you, he might think I am “threatening future friends” again, which I am not, you are my friend, or family, so there is no need to threaten you, right?’

Rocinante just sat there with his mouth hanging open, before deciding that he needed Alcohol to deal with this conversation and reached for the bottle of sake that they two boys had brought over. He completely ignored their own cups, young or not he was starting to understand that the term “child” did not apply to them.

‘By the way, Law, we still need to talk to you about what we are doing when we all turn seventeen, since you seem to have chosen to live with us and join our rather confusing circumstances,’ Sabo said.

‘I don’t think I decided so much as didn’t argue or fight it when your brother decided to drag me alongside him.’ Law said with a rather ruthful twist to his usual sadistic smile. ‘But as you brought it up, I assume you four had something in place already?’

‘Before you guys turned up? Definitely. Ace and I remember more than you, so we had things to plan for. The four of us are collecting money for our Pirate fund, when me and Ace turn Seventeen we get a third each and set sail to deal with a few … irritations that need putting down … and then come back here and collect Luffy and Zoro before he sets sail and swear ourselves as his crew. I think Zoro was also intending to leave at around seventeen to get practice in as a mercenary or bounty hunter? Well, that will probably depend on how Luffy is going.’

‘So, all of you are swearing yourselves to Luffy as your captain when the time comes?’

‘Can you see him staying out of trouble with the small crew he is bound to stick to? Also, I think the rest of his crew might need someone to save them from _him_ , somehow I don’t think Zoro will be enough.’

Law laughed, agreeing with the last sentiment, and also thinking that if his sister had survived and wanted to be a Pirate Queen he would be making sure that he was the doctor on that ship.

The thought had him taking a very large gulp of the drink in his hand, ignoring the look on Rocinante’s face, it may have been getting close to five years and her death still cut him deep.

‘Don’t you need your two bothers to be having conversations about me joining?’ it was a reasonable question.

‘My brothers know better than to try and argue with me about finances. Luffy makes other decisions, and Ace actually has enough discipline to keep us training the way we should, but money matters and organisations are best left in my hands.’ Sabo said, thinking be was pointing out the obvious as Rocinante silently agreed from where he was making his way though the bottle of Sake. ‘Of course, a lot of what we do depends of what _you_ want. Family doesn’t mean we have to be on the same crew, doesn’t even mean you have to be a Pirate. Luffy believes in freedom, he won’t take it away from you if you really don’t want to join, though if he does get mildly aggressive about it then you will probably end up joining whether you want to or not simply due to circumstances.

‘And if any of your plans involve taking Bepo somewhere, I strongly recommend keeping a close eye on him because Luffy has a way of convincing people that he wants to join him, often during very bizarre situations.’

Law leaned against Rocinante, who had drunk a little more than he was willing to admit, and seriously _thought_ about what Sabo was asking. What did he want? Once upon a time it was to see the world burn, then it had simply been to stay next to Cora-san, and the last two years had been to full of chaos and disorder to really think about it. Now that someone was asking out right …

Rocinante was listening very carefully for the answer, wanting to support his son in anything he chose, so long as it was actually him that chose it.

‘I … think I just want to be a doctor,’ Law eventually said with no small amount of surprise in his voice. ‘I don’t care if it is on a pirate ship or a small town in the middle of nowhere, I want to make my parents proud and prevent people having to go through what I did when no one would treat me just because of lies the world government spread. I have a “feeling” that if Cora-san had died two years ago when he was shot getting my fruit, my answer might have been different, but … right now I just … I’ll probably leave and learn as much as I can when I turn seventeen and then spend the rest of my life making sure I can heal this “family” that seems to have claimed me so that I don’t loose them,’ the “again” was left unsaid.

That hadn’t been what Sabo was expecting, given what he knew about everyone else he had ever met that shared that initial with Law, he was expecting something a little more likely to lead to destruction.

Sabo looked Law in the eye and said with such a straight face he couldn’t be anything other than serious. ‘You have got to be the sanest D I have ever met, and I actually have people to compare it to.’

Law just laughed, light and carefree while Rocinante spluttered as he choked on his drink at the casual mention of a letter that had given him so much trouble at one stage of his life or another.

‘Sabo, that’s not saying much.’

And suddenly Sabo was laughing as well, ‘No, it’s really not.’

At long last, they had all found a family in which they could belong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter before the epilogue, hopefully, I have felt that way before, but this story does not seem to want to end
> 
> Law had a family, it was a good one, he doesn’t anymore, hence why he can identify with the last statement despite not having quite the same family issues as the others.


	14. Setting Sail

Luffy stood in the doorway of the Bandit’s hut, looked out to sea, and grinned from ear to ear. In various towns across the island people were participating in the annual festival of children’s day, children and adult alike screaming and shouting in joy. He had already said his goodbyes to those inside the hut, some more reluctantly than other, and so it was time to set out.

All too soon he was at the village in which he had been raised before Garp decided to hand him over to his brothers. Children raced along the streets with their parents close behind, but another gathering was crowding around the docks, one he was much more interested in even if it was smaller.

And there they were, Ace leaning casually against the ships railing closest to the gang way, grinning as he caught sight of Luffy walking towards them. At long last he was grabbing his brother’s hand as Ace hauled him up unto the boat, a lot larger than the small row boat he had originally intended but it needed to be to fit the various members of his family and crew. Whispers of “happy birthday” and “good to see you, Captain” echoed around the wooden Deck as the others greeted him.

With a final wave to Rocinante, Makino, Woodslap, and the few other villages that they had gotten along with they set sail, pulling away from Dawn Island for the last time until they had made their way around the grand line.

Luffy smile, it was time for the adventure to begin, at long last they were free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that is the end of To Live Again, I hope you enjoyed reading it. I wanted to tie this story up with Luffy setting off with his rather different crew.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to say that I do not have any control over this story. It started as fragments of a scene, that then gave rise to other fragments of scene based on the same concept, and seems to have run away from there into a multi chapter thing that I was not intending on writing. It is technically a work in progress so please


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